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Race: Draconian

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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“This is grossly unfair and you know it, little dragon,” Dussok grumbled as he pulled the cart laden with ore. It looked tiny, almost like a child’s toy when compared to his new bulk. “Takkla and you have wings and I’m just… big?”

“You are really big,” Sam replied appreciatively. “At least a pace taller than before, and I can tell that your scales are thick enough to put most steel armor to shame. That’s before I even bring up your new claws. Unless I miss my guess you should be able to shatter stone with only a couple of punches. It really is an impressive evolution.”

Above the two of them, Takkla zipped through the air, flipping onto her back before diving down toward the two of them. Unlike Samazzar and Dussok, becoming a draconian had made her smaller and turned her orangeish-red scales a deep blue. The transformation hadn’t made her any weaker, just more compact.

Where Takkla had been more agile than the two of them before, the azure wings on her back and the webbing between her claws made that difference absurd now. Sam had wings and could fly as well, but he felt like a bull trying to catch a swallow whenever he tried to play games with her. He flew through the air, she lived in it.

“Bet you wouldn’t trade my size and claws for your wings,” Dussok said glumly. “Even Takkla has venom sacs that produce a paralytic poison. All I have are big muscles and the ability to sense vibrations in rocks and soil. This is beyond unfair.”

“Maybe not,” Sammazar responded with a wry smile. “Still, your new size and strength does allow you to use your formerly two handed axe in one hand. We should look into getting you a new shield to go with it. You might not be able to fly, but I’m sure you could single handedly stop an entire cavalry charge on your own.

Dussok let a hint of a smile creep onto his face as well.

“I was thinking two axes, little dragon. You were right about how thick my scales are. One of the miners accidentally dropped a crate of ore on me and I barely felt it. At this point, I think a second weapon might be more useful than a shield that isn’t even as hard as my skin.”

Takkla flapped her wings, pawing with her webbed claws as she performed an impossibly tight corkscrew before alighting on the back of the ore cart like a songbird.

“Well,” she chimed in, “it looks like all three of us are going to have a chance to try out our new bloodline abilities. I spotted a party of twelve humans wearing mismatched armor about a league out. I can’t confirm that they’re with the bandits, but-”

“But no one else would be this far into Vereton territory at the moment,” Samazzar finished for her, putting both of his hands on his hips and stretching his back. “We aren’t on a trade route and the only resource colony in this area is the mine we just came from. Unless I miss my guess this is probably one of the teams dispatched after us when we left the CIty.”

“I only have one question,” he continued. “Do any of them look like practitioners, or are we only dealing with warriors? Even then I wouldn’t be surprised if we run into a couple that have taken elixirs. Even a normal bandit gang would have access to fighters at the first tier, and given everything that we’ve seen so far, Vereton isn’t struggling with anyone normal.”

Takkla cocked her head to the side and shrugged.

“No one is wearing robes if that’s what you’re asking, but there’s no reason someone in chainmail can’t have picked up a mystery or two. You know that most of the Knights try to at least learn the mysteries of slashing or swiftness. They’re hardly anything impressive in the grand scheme of things, but it doesn’t take too much study to do some fairly serious damage with them.”

“Then we should ambush them before they get us,” Sam said with a tight nod. “The prairie grass is high, but it isn’t high enough to hide the wagon and there’s really nothing to conceal it behind. They probably won’t see it right away, but it’s only a matter of time. Even if a couple of them have taken elixirs, the element of surprise should be enough to carry us to victory.”

“I’m almost the size of the cart,” Dussok cut in dryly. “I maybe we could have managed to surprise the humans before you drew the heartsblood from the cliff drake, but right now that strikes me as a bit of a foolish goal.”

“It would be if you hadn’t evolved into an earth draconian,” Sam replied excitedly. “Draconians don’t often visit human and elven cities so the records are sparse, but there have been a number of military encounters with their villages. There are a number of sub-species, all with an affinity toward a mystery. Fire, air, earth, and water are very common, but there have also been reports of poison, ice and bone draconians. All of them have a bloodline gift associated with their affinity. For example, my firebreath has become even more impressive. I would bet my last parro that you can dig and burrow. At the very minimum, you should be able to bury yourself and the two of us could lead the humans into an ambush.”

Dussok groaned before fixing a suspicious glare on Samazzar.

“As soon as I thought about digging, my mind was filled with information. Apparently I can tunnel through loose earth and gravel at about the speed of a slow walk. It works in conjunction with my ability to sense vibrations so that I can feel people walking on the surface above me.”

“See!” Sam said, slapping his sibling on the shoulder. “I told you that your evolution was good. That’s a really useful ability.”

“You can fly and spit fire,” Dussok responded dourly, “and I’m big and can play in the dirt. There is nothing remotely equal about this.”

“Well I think it’s neat,” Takkla chimed in helpfully. “You might not be able to fly with Samazzar and I, but neither of us can do the things you can. Even in the air, Samazzar and I are very different. I might be able to fly faster and spot things that are further away, but he is bigger, stronger, and his fire breath is much more useful against groups of opponents than my new poison.”

“Come on,” Sam offered, picking up Dussok’s axe from the back of the cart where it lay wedged between a number of reddish orange chunks of ore. “You’re grumpy right now. You’ll feel a lot better after we kill some bandits.”

“I’m not a pup to be consoled with sweets or shiny baubles,” Dussok grumbled, releasing the wooden bars of the wagon and accepting the axe.

“If you cheer up,” Takkla responded from atop the now unmoving pile of ore. “I promise that I’ll buy you some molasses candy when we get back to Vereton. Don’t even try to deny your sweet tooth, it’ll be fun.”

Dussok glared at her for a second before relenting. Samazzar saw a smile creep onto his big friend’s face, and let himself grin as well. That was just Dussok, all sour and cranky on the outside, but soft as cotton within.

Sam spread his wings, reveling in the dull ‘whoomp’ as they displaced the air around him. They were big. He was much heavier than Takkla so it only made sense that they would need more surface area.

Still, he hadn’t expected them to be so… majestic. Each wing was almost two paces long, heavily muscled and covered with burgundy scales. It would be a while before he looked half as elegant as Fel’Annthor, but for the first time ever, his body finally felt right, if only in a small way.

They snapped downward and Samazzar launched into the air. The wind was alive around him. Before it was an enigma, something for him to study and wrench secrets from in order to gain power. Now, even though he hadn’t gained a level in the mystery, it curled around him like a friend. An ally that would reach out a hand to help him in a time of need.

A second later, Takkla joined him, taking off from the bed of the wagon and corkscrewing upward. The two of them did one quick circuit around Dussok and the ore, Sam reaching out with his senses to make sure that there weren’t any visible predators or thieves nearby, before Takkla zoomed toward the south.

Samazzar followed, letting his knowledge of the mystery of the wind blanket the landscape. In a flash he found the humans, tromping together in tight formation while a man and a woman bickered about the quality of their trail rations.

Behind them, Dussok’s silhouette disappeared as he burrowed into the ground. Mentally, Sam made a note that he couldn’t track the man while he was underground with wind, only the mystery of sound betrayed his steady scraping swipes as he pushed himself through the loose dry soil.

And so they flew, careful not to move so fast that Dussok lost track of them. A couple of minutes later, Samazzar picked up on the sound of the humans shouting. Two of them were pointing up at the flying draconians, evidently having finally put together that the specks on the horizon were something more menacing than ordinary hawks and gulls. He nodded to Takkla and she pulled the shortbow from where it was in a holster on her back, a length of twine connecting it to her ankle.

Takkla circles once, wings spread wide as she made a tight hairpin turn and drew an arrow from her quiver. She reached up, running her tongue across the arrowhead to coat it with her new poison before drawing back her weapon’s string and nocking it.

Samazzar didn’t have a weapons with similar range, so he flew closer, wings beating against the air as he tried to close the gap between him and the ‘bandits.’ To their credit, they didn’t break and run. That would have made Sam’s job much easier, as he doubted that they would be able to mount a proper defense while escaping, and the mobility advantage created by his and Takkla’s wings would have rendered their efforts meaningless.

A quartet of arrows zipped toward him, fired by the group’s archers. Only two were near enough that Sam even needed to worry, and both of those were easily brushed aside by him redirecting the wind into a sudden downward gust that caught only the projectile's tails, sending them tumbling away, end over end.

Takkla’s return arrow was deflected by a human woman carrying a curved sword and a metal round shield. The woman wasn’t the flying draconian’s target, but she moved with unnatural swiftness and agility the moment the attack was unleashed, interposing herself between a scared man holding a longbow and the oncoming projectile. Mentally, Sam made a note to target her first. The sooner they managed to eliminate the humans that were enhanced by elixirs and hard training, the better their chances were to take the entire group unharmed.

She shouted something at the now cowering archer. Samazzar could have listened in if he wanted, but it didn’t seem that it mattered all that much. Instead his attention was needed to knock aside another volley of three arrows. This time, all of them were in his general vicinity. He wasn’t sure that any of them would have actually hit him, or if they would have managed to penetrate his scales, but it seemed prudent to not take any risks.

Takkla’s second return shot struck home. This time the human woman was out of position. She tried to cross the formation in time, but Takkla purposefully aimed for a fighter as far away from the enhanced warrior as possible, and was rewarded with one of the humans going down with a length of wood sticking out of his thigh.

Before Samazzar could turn his attention to the injured man to assess the effectiveness of Takkla’s poison, something flickered through the air, barely touching the wind as it zipped toward him.

Sam dove, pushing up with a wave of redirected wind that seemed to shy away from his target, and he was rewarded with a line of white hot pain across his back as the attack shredded his scales like dry leaves.

Another arrow flew from Takkla toward his assailant, a tall muscular human clad in a metal breastplate and dark leathers that looked significantly better than anything wielded by the common rank and file. The female human stepped smoothly in the way of the arrow, deflecting the projectile with contemptuous ease as the man reached up with his right fist, grabbing something Sam couldn’t quite see and yanking it backward.

A harpoon whizzed through the air from behind Samazzar, visible now that the enchantment shielding it from the wind was no longer active. For a fraction of a second, Samazzar considered trying to grab the weapon out of the air, but he almost immediately gave up on the intent. The human warrior had clearly consumed an elixir, and unlike Sam he had solid ground to brace himself on. Any tug of war wouldn’t end with a positive result.

The moment of hesitation was enough for the human to regain his weapon. It whipped into the man’s grip where he twirled it once, producing a low ‘wooshing’ sound as it blurred in a crescent before the human drew it back. Now that Sam was looking at the man, he could see a glint of bronze around the man’s wrist and connected to the spear by a length of almost translucent material.

Another four arrows flew through the air toward Takkla and Samazzar, but the mystery of wind let him redirect them, curving their flights until all of them went wide. The man just grinned, drawing back his arm and preparing to throw the weapon a second time.

As soon as he unleashed it, Sam’s suspicions were confirmed. He didn’t know what mystery was worked into the harpoon, but it was almost invisible to wind, meeting no resistance magical or mundane as it flashed through the air toward his charging form.

This time, Sam didn’t even attempt to deflect it with the wind. Instead, he grabbed a hold of an oncoming gust and flared out his wings. His neck and back jerked forward as his momentum stopped and his body was flung upward, but the thrown spear missed him by a pace.

The human frowned, reaching out to grab hold of the invisible thread, but Samazzar’s wild charge had born fruit. Once again, the wind swirled under his control curling around behind the soaring draconian and pushing him downward even as he tucked his wings to his sides.

He dove, blood streaming from the crease on his back as he filled his lungs with air. His bloodline magic activated and a cone of flame erupted from his gullet. It was stronger than before, enough on its own to engulf a handful of targets in flame, but Samazzar wasn’t willing to settle for any half measures.

The cone of fire erupted, consuming the entire group of humans in a maelstrom of dancing red and yellow. Their screams were stolen from their throats as the flames ate the very oxygen from their surroundings, leaving nothing but extreme heat and ash in its wake.

Before Sam could let himself react, a figure burst from the inferno, flames covering its body. The human woman had moved quickly, her elixir and training granting her the unnatural speed and reflexes she needed to escape his magic.

Not unscathed. She was covered in burns, and the parts of her armor that weren’t destroyed entirely were smoldering dangerously. Her hands blurred as she pulled a potion from a pocket and drew it toward her mouth.

Samazzar slammed into the ground, landing in a heavy crouch as he frowned at her. He reached out with his mind, touching the fire that still wreathed her body, and twisted. For the barest fraction of a moment it resisted. Flame wanted to remain flame, but under the onslaught of Sam’s mind it gave way.

She exploded. The fire dug into the nearby fuel sources and sublimated hair, cloth and skin into flammable vapors that ignited. A series of concussive blasts rocked and twisted her body, shattering bone and pulping the flesh that hadn’t burned.

The human collapsed. Samazzar made sure to draw another line of fire over from the blaze he’d used on the rest of the formation. She didn’t move as the flames assaulted her head and face. If she was playing dead, she had more willpower than any being Sam had ever met.

Finally, after about ten to fifteen seconds of burning, the fire began to die down as it exhausted its fuel. Sam was careful to control the extent of the inferno, not wanting to start a fire that might spread uncontrollably through the dry prairie. Theoretically, he could keep the fire going indefinitely by using his magic, but he was already tired from his exertions in the air. It seemed more prudent to-

A harpoon zipped past him.

The air itself seemed to quiver in the wake of the attack. Samazzar just blinked. If it had been thrown a half pace to the left, he would have been sprouting a hand-sized hole in his torso.

“Miranda!” A man screamed, half mad with pain as the spear wielding human staggered out of the diminishing flames. His armor was charred behind recognition. The metal plates were bent and warped while the leather was more ash than hide. Most of his face was gone, including his left eye. Likely a factor in the fortuitous missed through.

Samazzar tensed his legs, preparing himself to leap on the human even as he touched the bloodline magic that made his claws sharper than they had any right to be. There was no question in his mind that the man had taken an elixir. Sam just didn’t know if it were one or two. It was clear that his strength and resistances were well beyond human standard.

What remained unknown was his status. The man was half blind and his body was covered with deep burns, but his legs were steady and his hands didn’t tremble as he yanked back on the invisible cord to recall his weapon. If he was anywhere near fighting shape, Sam would need to use the mystery of fire again, but he was unsure if it would be successful without the element of su-

His eyes widened as the wind gave him an urgent warning. Samazzar had less than a fraction of a thought to react as he threw himself to the ground just ahead of the metal harpoon that zipped back into the human’s hands.

The man lifted the spear into a guard position. There wasn’t any boastful spin and flourish this time. Just rage and the desire to see his opponent dead.

Then, a pair of hands burst from the ground underneath the warrior, seizing both of his calves and yanking forward.

He fell. It might not be accurate to say that he lost his balance, rather Dussok’s huge, sandy yellow claws literally lifted him from the ground and slammed him onto his back, forcing the breath from his lungs.

Before the human could react, one of Takkla’s arrows embedded itself in his shoulder. Given the man’s already demonstrated resilience, Samazzar wasn’t sure that her venom would do much, but on the other hand, it wasn’t really needed.

Dussok burst from the ground, his clawed left hand removing a scoop of burnt flesh from the downed human’s thigh even as he ripped his axe from its harness and held it above its head. The human’s eyes widened, and his lips moved as he tried to formulate some response, but Samazzar was destined to never know his final words.

The axe fell, shattering ribs and embedding itself deep in the human’s torso. He twitched once as Dussok clambored out of his burrow, brushing his scales to remove the dry prairie soil.

“Both of you were right,” he said conversationally, planting a foot on the man’s chest as he pulled the axe free. “I did just need a chance to test out my abilities. I feel worlds more cheerful now.”