Around a circular table in the far-most-left room in the church, a meeting was held urgently to discuss the sudden event. The lord’s daughter and the strongest adventuring party have returned badly injured and the words of a dragon appearing at the gate have left the people stressed.
“I know you’re injured but I want an explanation, what in the hell did happen?” William asked, quickly stealing a glance at Zaleria who was relaxing on the chair without a care in the world.
“This might take some time…” Cain said with a slow voice.
“Doesn’t matter, we have time,” William replied and Leon nodded to him with a “Humm”
‘I said that because I’m too exhausted to tell you an hour-long story but okay.’ Cain thought as he tried to force a smile.
“Make it short, you need to rest,” Zaleria spoke out of nowhere, William looked at her furiously and she returned the gaze. “Kid, know your place!” She growled at him and his face turned red in anger.
“Zaleria please let me handle this.” Cain tried to calm her down, the most important part now was to make her identity known “From the end, she is the dragon that appeared at the gate. You piss her off, the city is puff! puff! In smoke.” Cain gestured to William to calm down before he causes a catastrophe.
William looked at her in silence as the guard who brought him stumbled back, all she needed to do was change her eyes back into dragon ones the man ran away. Inside this room, she was more than just a threat, just her transformation would knock the church killing hundreds of people.
“You wanted them to be healed as fast as possible so thank you.” Leon was the one to break the silence, he tried his best to sound respectful as he saw her figure in front of his eyes.
“See, I like your son more. won’t you give him the throne?” Zaleria said as she mimicked Cain’s way of sitting and fixed her posture. She wasn’t used to sitting on chairs so her back was bent to the point she seemed to be about to sleep on the table.
“Father, can we get this conversation finished quickly?” Alice asked as she checked Cain’s temperature. It was normal but his breathing was accelerating and he was sweating on his back.
“Y-yeah.” He replied, “We better get this done quickly.”
“Human, I can sense you’re…” Before Zaleria could finish her sentence she was interrupted by Gracie “Master is exhausted, could we finish this quickly? ” which sent a shiver down Cain’s spine, he quickly tried to tell Gracie to apologize before Zaleria snaps.
“You’re right, this is no time for idle chatting!” To Cain’s surprise, Zaleria seemed to take Gracie’s words well, what did happen between the two when he was sleeping.
Zaleria then started explaining what happen, and why she was in the mountains close to the farm. How did she sense her sister coming and how did she intervene in the fight. Why is her sister dangerous and why she shouldn’t be killed or captured by normal means?
When Zaleria heard that her sister is planning something in Ourals she headed to investigate. “My sister has never been up to good.” She said waving her hand. Morena was a bit weaker than her little sister Zaleria because she specialized in two fields of magic. One of them was hard to train for its weird nature.
Morena specialized in the acid element which is her draconic magic and necromancy which is her studied magic. As a necromancer, a great portion of her power lies in controlling the undead which made her considerably weaker without them. She also seems to have dabbled in curse magic and devil summoning but seems to have lost interest a couple of decades ago.
Aside from keeping an eye on her sister, Zaleria was looking for her lost hut. A sanctuary is hidden with magic where she used to live before. The hidden lair held a lot of her precious stuff like scrolls, gold, witchcraft magic items, and more.
She was normally saying she is a witch in front of the city lord and no one dared say a word about it.
It was then that she heard that her sister was plotting something with Ourals lord and she got interested. Counting her sister’s sick attitude, she was probably intending to turn the whole city into an undead army or melt them for food. With that in mind, Zaleria proceeded to borrow the help of a horse she found on the farm. “I did ask the horse and he said that he will be honored to carry a dragon on his back!” Zaleria cleared herself, she didn’t steal the horse but asked for his help.
It was at that moment when Gracie pointed out that the horse was owned by the farm and Zaleria replied that she didn’t see any slavery collar on him so he was a free horse. “Dragons can understand most animals, she probably sees them as a less smart race. This will include horses, dogs, cats, birds, and even some bugs.” Cain gave them a piece of information to make things clear.
She doesn’t know exactly why her sister went after Cain and his party but a single fact was certain, all the people her sister caught had ended either as her food or turned into undeads.
When she was fighting with her sister she made sure to keep the damage minimal but her sister didn’t. ” If she used her breath then I had no choice but to use mine and blow a chunk of the forest!” Zaleria said opening her palms with her eyes closed.
The last part why did she let her sister run away and didn’t capture or kill her. “Capturing her is impossible, her acid can corrode even corrode magical restrains. For why I didn’t kill her, half because she is my sister and a half because she would have exploded!”
Zaleria then went on to explain how did she see other dragons’ last moments. It was rare to see a dragon die of old age, they all die in battle in great deeds. Those who died to mortals had the scariest last moment, even after their heads were severed their bodies kept fighting, lastly when they were completely dead and unable to move their bodies would explode in a ball of their elemental energy.
Cain had to explain this as even Zaleria only saw it happen, He, on the other hand, saw it multiple times in the Dragon lord’s lair as he was kept there for the madness experiments.
Dragons’ bodies are filled with elemental magic. A red dragon is filled with fire magic. a blue dragon is filled with lightning magic and a black dragon is filled with acid magic. When they die unnaturally that energy had to escape somewhere. So when a dragon dies and its core stops functioning, its massive energy starts building up inside its body. That pressure build-up usually leads to an explosion of the dragon’s elements.
Of course, a dragon can prevent that if it decided to vent all its energy before death. Most dragons won’t do their enemies this favor. That’s why to kill a dragon you must exhaust it first and force him to spend all of his magic.
Even if someone had the strength to kill a dragon in one strike they won’t do it as they will make them explode. This was one of the reasons why dragons are the last thing anyone wants to fight. A fire dragon dying explosion can level down a mountain for example.
If Zaleria killed Her sister, Morena would have exploded and killed everyone in the area with an acid burst.
“So are you saying that your sister is aligned with Ourals?” Leon asked with a sweaty forehead, he knew what would happen if the answer was yes.
“It’s probably more of her using them but you can say they are aligned!”
Hearing her words Leon banged his head on the table a couple of times, “Winter, war, the dungeon break, and now they have a dragon. Is it better to surrender?” He said with a sad voice.
“Well, I intend to stay here with my granddaughter for quite some time so if they attacked I will take care of my sister at least!” Zaleria said sending a smile to Leon’s face.