Draconnic Shenanigans - Episodes 38

 Chapter Thirty Eight: Hoarding Trouble

 

(Artwork my own, better quality later)

 "You are such a peasant," Ulrich sighed, grabbing part of the sheet of spiders silk that was flapping from Sabal's sword, rubbing it over the front of his shirt.

"Favorite of the Matriarch, this stuff..." Sabal began and then stopped as the silk stuck to the gunge and not Ulrich's clothes. He frowned a moment and then closed his eyes before he wiped his hand across the gloop that had splattered him. Narrowed eyed with distaste, he rubbed it on the edge of the web where it clung to his sword. After a moment the silk started lifting and he worked harder at using it to convince the web to start lifting.

"And you think that I care?" Kaelin replied to Ulrich's observation, smiling to hide the fact that she was feeling really rather sick. Her stomach was rolling and she felt as if she was turning green. She'd shifted back to her fully human form, though these days that was human with a side order of wings, as that sometimes help to heal the damage but it most definitely hadn't worked this time. She started putting her hand up to her back but then flinched away as her fingers dipped into a hole that shouldn't have been there. The weird thing was that it didn't hurt but she'd seen that in others and figured that it couldn't be good. She tried to shrug off her pack but she found the motion difficult. What the heck was wrong with her?

Meanwhile Tikrumpdel, having recovered from his bout of merriment, was eyeing up Valodrael with a speculative gaze. He craned his head forward and sniffed. The Void Dragon stood and tilted his head up, a proud challenge in his gaze even though his hide rippled with the first shocks of his condition. It hadn't been long since he'd been riding crossbow with Estella but the giant spider was not enough to fuel an extended excursion solo. There again... Behind Valodrael's hooded eyes speculation crawled as he eyed up Tikrumpdel's massive bulk and his mind calculated just how much magical life force crawled through that plump tissue. It took some strict diaphragm control to prevent a telling gurgle from echoing through the cavern.

"You are a Void Dragon," Tikrumpdel stated. That actually made Valodrael lift an eyebrow.

"It is unusual to find anyone who knows of our kind in these recent years," he stated, "I wasn't aware that we were that well known outside of the Far Continent."

"Oh," Tikrumpdel rolled slightly sideways and scratched at that persistent itch on his belly, "I visited that place about seven hundred years ago. Thought I could emigrate there after Gaudis died and those young upstarts got umpty. Didn't want much, just a corner of the tundra where I could pick off some of the mega fauna. I was even willing to stick to the predators if they had just pointed out which ones were the predators."

"I take it some of the locals were not open to mutually beneficial arrangements," Valodrael observed.

"Huh," Tikrumpdel snorted, puffing smoke and sparks to the roof of the cavern, "Damn snipperty, unwelcoming, pig headed blue noses."

"Ah," Valodrael purred, looking smudge, "The wonderful ranks of the Astral Dragons who must always be right because they thought it and therefore it is right."

"Damn self righteous fanatics," Tikrumpdel agreed, rolling back on to his belly, "Still that Day of Detonation, bad business all round that. Mucking about with magics like that, never going to turn out well, they should have left well enough alone."

"Oh," Valodrael seemed interested, "I was not aware that anyone in the ranks of the Astral Dragons were working with the Domilii in any capacity other than the direct war effort."

"Wouldn't know about that," Tikrumpdel admitted, "I didn't exactly stay after they had blistered my wings a couple of times and I wasn't exactly about to go back to offer myself for a second bout of it. None of my business as to why they started ripping each other to shreds over there. Besides, it was getting difficult to get into the air by then, didn't fancy a long flight for no certain return but as I said, it was a bad business all round. Nobody should be mucking about with magics like that but I have to admit that I thought all you lot had died over there. Your parents get out or something? Won't fancy your chances of finding a mate."

"My parents died long before the Day of Detonation," Valodrael stated, "I wasn't that long out of the egg in fact, on the day they perished by the Domilii's treachery and his Crone Dragon... ally."

"Get away," Tikrumpdel snorted, "If you are a day over two hundred and fifty I'm a tadpole."

"I witnessed the Day of Detonation from the very epicenter and one day the Domilii with regret the mistake of keeping me as his... pet." Valodrael's lip curled in a sneer that could have curdled milk.

Tikrumpdel made an indelicate noise in his throat.

"You expect me to believe that you survived that nightmare unharmed..." he started.

Valodrael liquefied, a terrible groaning, shrieking composite noise shredding through the air, making eardrums curl up and wish to die. There seemed to be several different versions of his voice, all howling or screaming or moaning all at once as the black oil of his form twisted and writhed through the air, leaping in series of arches that concluded as it struck Estella. She arched backwards and then bowed forward, grunting with the effort.

When she straightened and looked at Tikrumpdel her eyes were completely black.

"Unharmed?" Valodrael's voice dripped from between her lips, "You call this unharmed? Five hundred years I have endured, moving from vessel to vessel, never free of the pain. Even in this willing host I am not free of the pain I endured at the hands of the Domilii, always unable to take to the skies as a dragon truly should! I am but a half thing, crippled, broken, body-less! What is a dragon if he does not have his wings!?!"

Tikrumpdel sagged and looked over his shoulder. His wings gave an abortive flutter. Thorian staggered and lent into the gale that move kicked up.

"I hear you," Tikrumpdel sighed, head drooping to the floor, "And I managed to do this to myself. After Gaudis was killed and I lost my hoard, there wasn't much else to do but eat. It all adds up. So you're not after my hoard?"

"I wouldn't be able to protect it even if I was interested in such inanimate objects," Valodrael sneered.

"You don't even have a hoard?" Tikrumpdel demanded, lifting his head.

"I did not say that," Valodrael folded Estella's arms and smiled with a measure of his usual self assurance with her mouth, "I have a hoard but it is not of metal or magic. It is infinitely more precious to me than such things for all it is so very fragile. I will not say more when I am not at my full capabilities." Her head tilted in Jeremiah's direction.

"Ah," Tikrumpdel agreed, "In that I think we can agree to respect one another's property."

"That is preferable at this time," Valodrael bowed Estella's head to him.

"After all," Tikrumpdel chuckled, "It's not like I need the extra snacks, despite how tasty she looks."

Valodrael narrowed Estella's eyes.

"Oh don't worry I'll not try it, she probably runs faster than I can catch any way and..." he trailed off and then guffawed. Valodrael raised Estella's eyebrow.

"Oh ho ho," Tikrumpdel laughed, "That's not the sort of tasty you're worried about, is it? Oh I see, I see indeed. Well it has been a while since we've had a new strain of Dragonkin in the world, this will be interesting to see."

Estella frowned, her own expression as Valodrael started stepping back from dual control and then her face flushed red as she worked out what Tikrumpdel was referring to. 

"Speaking of seeing," Ulrich stepped forward, "I believe that we were discussing the possibility of you leaving this particular lair and traveling with us back up to the surface, before we were so rudely interrupted by these... people."

"Uhm," Tikrumpdel snorted, pulling his attention away from where Nanny Tatters' was picking over the remains of the battle. He'd been sniffing at her, clearly puzzled about her behavior. "Er, is that one with you?" he demanded.

"She's with him," Ulrich gestured to Jeremiah, who took a moment to bow to the pair of them and then walked on towards Kaelin, "We... Well, truth be told we picked a fight with her after we discovered that she was part of the plot to destabilize the society of the Ash Elves and we won but our esteemed colleague decided that since he was able to he would bring her back as an extra... ally for us."

Tikrumpdel craned his neck out again, sniffing at Nanny Tatters, who totally ignored him. It was rather fair as he was ignoring the one sided conversation that Estella was having with her passenger. It seemed to be a fairly intense conversation from her color but Ulrich was also trying not to listen in. It was the height of bad form to listen in uninvited on such a private conversation.

"Um," Tikrumpdel wrinkled his snout, "Can't deny that you are powerful. So this proposition of yours..."

Jeremiah walked passed the chatting pair. Let Ulrich run all the risks of talking to a dragon that could swallow him at a single gulp if he so chose to do so, Jeremiah had more interesting things to deal with.

"Er, you okay?" Thorian frowned as Kaelin swayed.

"I... think... I'm..." she managed.

Thorian caught her just before she smacked into the floor.

"Oh that's not good," he noted seeing the gaping, bleeding wounds in her back as her top rode up as exposed them, the small holes in the dragon hide armor belying the depth of the wound that it had hidden. He was used to seeing some pretty grizzly injures, the mountains were nobody's friend and were only moderately willing to let his people live there but Kaelin had holes in her lower back that he could have fitted his fist into. "That really isn't good."

"Well, I do think that I'll have to help our friend here," Jeremiah smiled as he drew up to them.

"Er, what's your game?" Thorian frowned up at him.

"Games, my dear Thorian?" Jeremiah smiled, "I'm not playing any games, merely offering to save the life of our good friend Kaelin. After all I did manage to save good sir Ulrich when we where in the city of the dwergs and he had been injured. Surely you can see that Kaelin now needs my aid?"

"She needs help," Thorian agreed, "But Ulrich acts a bit odd since you healed him back in that big city. What's that all about?"

"Only that good Sir Ulrich is being reminded that he now owes his soul to the One True God and that he should give thanks on a more regular basis," Jeremiah preached it, "But if you think you can heal Kaelin before she expires I'm sure she will not mind bleeding some more."

"Er?" Thorian frowned, trying to work out what Jeremiah meant.

"Tick tock," Jeremiah smiled, "You'd better start looking after her soon, I don't think she has that much blood left in her."

"Oh alright!" Thorian snapped, "Heal her but no funny stuff okay?"

"Oh absolutely," Jeremiah smiled and stepped forward, stretching his arms out wide, the pray forming on his lips. Kaelin's bleeding slowed but it was hard to say whether that was because she was being to heal or whether she was taking hold of the bony one's hand.

Jeremiah sweated, beads trickling down his brow and into his beard. For some reason Kaelin's injuries were resisting the blessing of his god. That or his god was reluctant to accept her soul.

"It's not working," Thorian fretted. Kaelin mumbled something.

"What was that?" Thorian bent his ear closer to her head as she lay face down in his arms.

"I said, pray harder," she mumbled.

Jeremiah drew himself up, robes billowing as he spread his arms wide, face darkening with effort, lips moving as he mumbled a prayer to his god, trying to convince him that if he allowed Kaelin to die then he would never be able to claim her soul but if he reached forth his hand now to heal and to save then Kaelin would be bound to him forever more, new hands through which he could work his will, new feet that would spread the knowledge of his word, his divine Will.

Kaelin ached as a pain seared up her spine. Some how, some how, she didn't scream but her mouth stretched into it, her eyes bulging with agony as her melted flesh reversed the process of narcotizing, blackened tissue flooding red, liquid muscle sliding backwards the way it came, reforming into solid meat.

Her jaw creaked as it tried to open further, something, something terrible hanging over her, filling her vision with its mind bleaching form.

It was a dragon and not a dragon at the same time, a thing of light that brought no sight, of shadow that brought no concealment. It rippled and wavered before her, the jagged whips of its outer shell staggering in lightning strikes across the impossibly of the realm.

Kaelin's stomach lurched as her body lost any and all contact with the world around her, her mind straining not to break under the scale of its titanic gaze. That stomach flip saved her.

She pitched forward, chest smacking into the arm Thorian reached out to hold her up and...

She vomited. She vomited hard, stomach voiding its contents with wretching, tearing sounds that felt like her toe nails were about to come up.

"That's it," Thorian rubbed a gentle hand over the new flesh filling her back, "It's it, ma'am, you bring it all up."

Jeremiah did a very undignified hop back as Kaelin wrenched again. He picked up one foot and tried to shake the puke off the toe of his shoe.

"Oh Kaelin," he sighed, "Did you have to?"

"Didn't have much choice," she grunted, leaning against Thorian and then jerked.

"Here comes the second round!" she managed to gulp, just before its exit tore through her hard enough to rip her stomach muscles.

Jeremiah backed up even further as it splattered the across the stones.

"Now really Kaelin, that is more than a little undignified," he admonished.

 Kaelin gave him the angry side eye and then tried something.

It turned out that her acting skills were some what impressive as she faked her heaves and groans and wretches.

"Would you like the porcelain truck?" Estella hurried over, her conversation with Valodrael forgotten about in the face of her concern for Kaelin. She crouched by Kaelin's side, putting a hand on her shoulder. Kaelin turned her head slightly, checked that Jeremiah couldn't see and then winked at Estella. Estella frowned, wondering what on Hestia Kaelin could mean by that gesture when it was clear she was in great distress. Then she realized that Kaelin was making an awful lot of noise but not that much mess now. She straightened slightly and then risked a quick glance over her shoulder.

Jeremiah was completely convinced by Kaelin's display and as his shoes were in enough of a mess he was walking, not running, he was walking, with purpose. The fact that the purpose was to be as far away from Kaelin as possible didn't need to be talked about. He hitched his belt a little higher.

Kaelin raised an eyebrow.

"My gods," she noted in a sore voice, "I think he is actually losing weight."

"Lots of exercise will do that for a guy," Thorian nodded after a moment and then held Kaelin sit down on her butt. For once Kaelin did not fight the help. Though half of her spasms had been faked, the other half had been all too real and it had left her sore and battered. Also with a raging thirst, something that she recognized as Estella held her own water bottle below Kaelin's nose. Kaelin took it and drank.

"Also less often dinners," Estella noted, "I'm not sure what schedule we've been keeping but it sure isn't regular."

"Ugh," Kaelin flinched, "Don't mention food right now, please." She put a hand to her head. "He might have just saved my life but there is going to be a cost from this. I just know it. Ugh!"

"Our proposition?" Ulrich was saying to Tikrumpdel, "Oh yes, that was it, a proper place to keep your hoard where it will be safe from adventurers with more bravery than sense come pocking around."

"Bravery? Ha!" Tikrumpdel barked, "The courage of adventurer's is one part bravery and three parts fool! Bah, half the world would be better off without them pocking their noses in where they are not wanted."

"A fair point," Ulrich conceded carefully, "But I would like to think that this group of adventurers has been a complete walking disaster. We did seem to have helped out among the dwergs and we are continuing to help the Serpent Clan of Ash Elves and by extension the other Ash Elves, even the ones who want us dead."

"How do you mean?" Tikrumpdel turned his head to look at his out of one eye, the gesture rather bird like.

"The Bat Clan are allied to the werewolves that have been destroying to citadels of the Ash Elves," Ulrich explained, "But they don't realize that the werewolves haven't been killing every body inside those citadels; they have been infecting a proportion of the population  instead. The Bat Clan are now out numbered by their allies and by the time they realize that it will be because the werewolves have turned on them and are trying to infect them as well. By trying to stop this war and help the Ash Elves change their society to be slightly less... judgemental of others, we are saving them all, even the Bat Clan who right now would like to see us all dead as we are derailing their plan to have their vengeance on the other clans but we are saving them, probably from a fate worse than death."

"Um," Tikrumpdel thought about it, "I suppose there has to be exceptions to every rule, otherwise you wouldn't know that it's a rule."

"You're too kind," Ulrich murmured.

"Now about this place you think my hoard would be safe?" Tikrumpdel queried.

"Ah yes," Ulrich smiled with growing confidence, "That would be the Wizard's Tower in the heart of the dead swamp. It is an extremely well defended location, with two outer walls, productive farmland and a master that recognizes the sense of preparing rather than panicking. Elisha the Mastersmith is a man of many talents, not in the least the ability to earn the loyalty of the creatures he creates."

"Mastersmith?" Tikrumpdel interrupted, "He creates creatures?"

"He can bring back the souls of bad people and make them work to be better," Thorian explained, "Least that's the way I understand it. Aye don't rightly know how he does it but Aye don't know how Jerries makes his dragon follow him around so there you go."

"The thing is that after a while the damned souls that serve him seem to develop a loyalty to him," Ulrich added, "He doesn't have to keep forcing them to serve him, they seem to develop a want to serve him and serve him well."

"That is unusual," Tikrumpdel admitted, rubbing his belly back and forth, rocks grinding to powder beneath his weight. He was not the only one looking thoughtful, Estella had a speculative expression on her face.

"Do you suppose that he may know something that could help with our... issue?" she whispered, apparently to no one.

"It is a possibility," Valodrael replied in her mind, "I would want to meet this Elisha before I run the risk of being in his debt because if he is anything like the one we are traveling with then..." He let it hang.

"I don't think he can be," Estella noted back, "By the sound of it, this Elisha has the actual respect of his creations. If that is so then he must be looking after them better than some gods do."

"Certainly more than most necromancers," Valodrael agreed, "So it would certainly be worth our while to have a look."

"That and he's living in the middle of a swamp so if it is a dead end then we should still be able to make the bridge to Seraphar," Estella observed and then wished she hadn't as she felt Valodrael go still.

"You're homesick, aren't you?" his voice was gentle and she breathed a sign of relief. He was not like her father and he certainly wasn't like her father's friend.

"Yes," she admitted, "I know you need this..."

"But you need to go home," he interrupted, "I've waited five hundred years, what's another year? Another decade? Yes it hurts but I have time and I'll have time again once I have back my flesh and blood. I apologize that I did not see that we had tarried too long away from your horde, forgive me."

Estella turned away from the rest of the King's Special to hide the fact that she was struggling not to burst into tears. Being safe to have a need was so... so wonderful.

"Thank you," she struggled to not allow her voice to crack. She closed her eyes and sighed as a feeling crept over her skin, a feeling of warmth, of being held.

"This is what I miss most in being body less," Valodrael murmured, "That which is gentle is denied me."

She chuckled a little at that.

"Who would suspect the great and terrible Valodrael, the terror of predators and monsters, would wish for something gentle?" she managed to smile through the tears clogging her throat.

"Sheng Tie was right, you have been good for me," Valodrael admitted, "Oh I'll admit that there is a certain satisfaction in waking a volcano and dancing in the ash cloud as the world splits but there is a bitterness in the destruction it would bring."

"I... I'm not sure I fully understand," Estella admitted.

"The world is hard, cold, cruel and ugly," his voice echoed in her mind, "That is the natural order of the world, that is what it wants to be. Therefore, to preserve something of softness, something of warmth, something of gentleness, something of beauty, that is the greatest act of chaos that can ever be made and I am a creature of chaos."

Estella closed her eyes, understanding what he meant by his regret for being body less in this moment as she felt the need to be able to lean into him, to feel the living presence of flesh and blood that gave comfort with its warmth. It was hard to know he was there and not feel him, to feel his arms around her, to feel his palm against her cheek.

"We get there, in time," he reassured.

"Any way," Ulrich was pressing on with Tikrumpdel, "The point is that Elisha has a small army at his disposal, which will be more than capable of protecting your most valuable horde. Not only that but he is also friends with a rather graceful dragon by the name of Amelia. Beautiful creature she is, as bright orange as a marigold and plant life just bursts into being where ever she walks so she is highly magical as well."

"A Tropic Dragon," Tikrumpdel raised his eye ridges, "Now I haven't heard of one of them outside their normal range for an age. It seems the world has been busy while I was asleep. Maybe it would be interesting to see how the world has changed in this age."

"There's also Hartseer, the King's best agent, you would definitely get on with him," Ulrich noted, "He has a pretty dim view people who steal stuff and he'd been stomping around the world for just about five hundred years so I guess he would be the perfect undying guardian for your hoard."

Estella's eyes widened as Valodrael churned within her.

"Hartseer?" Valodrael demanded, "He did say Hartseer, didn't he?"

"It sounded that way," Estella murmured, "Why? Do you know this Hartseer? Is he important?"

"Know him?" Valodrael churned some more, "I knew of a Hartseer but this cannot be the same being. The one I knew was the best General the Domilii ever had, his star pupil and the perfect pawn. He never realized that he was being used. Unless... Useless he was one of the successful subjects of the Domilii's experiments. If that is the case... It would certainly be interesting to meet him in person at last. I wonder if he's realized just how much of a monkey he was."

"You mind have a little trouble with the Chest Weasel," Ulrich was continuing, "But she is no more annoying than a toddler really and she does give you nice stuff to make up for it once you have feed her."

"Chest Weasel?" Tikrumpdel narrowed his eyes.

"Yes," Ulrich hesitated, wondering if he had just made an absolute blunder but pushing on, "A small Fae creature, looking a little like a ferret crossed with a monkey, has a rather spotty complexion and lots of sharp teeth. She feeds off of people annoyance with her but she always pays for her meals with a gift. She gave me a very nice saddle for my giant lizard that is currently being held in Nether Wallop for my return."

"Oh I know the creature you mean, we had a different name for them in Nalblahal," Tikrumpdel nodded, mentioning the dwarven mountain stronghold he was said to have helped found when he was little more than a hatchling.

"And what name would that be?" Ulrich inquired.

 "Get-out-of-here-you-worthless-piece-of-vermin was one of them," he vast bulk trembled with the chuckle as he smiled at the fond memory, "Gods-damned-nuisance was another. When people weren't yelling at them directly they were referred to a gremlins."

"Oh are they the little invisible creatures that dwarfs are always complaining about?" Ulrich asked, "I always thought that they were a myth."

Tikrumpdel laughed at that, a deep belly wobbling laugh that shook him like a plate of jelly.

"You live in a world where dragons can soar through the skies and wizards spin magic like a housewife spins wool," he chuckled, "Ah, little man, do you not know that there are worlds where dragons are the myth and magic is considered to be the very stuff of the greatest evil possible?"

"No I did not," Ulrich admitted.

"Oh yes," Tikrumpdel nodded, "There are doorways in the world. They are few and far between and difficult to power but they do exist. I met a young man from one of the other worlds once, oh must be centuries ago. He thought he'd died and come to a place called Hell when he saw me. Kept clutching this book he called the Geneva Bible. Said it was his greatest treasure. Couldn't see it myself, no gold in it and it wasn't even magical but he was bound and determined that it was his shield and his guide. I wonder if he ever managed to find his brother, said that was who he was looking for. Strange chap really, took one look at my hoard and said that it was impressive but that he had no need for such earthly treasure, only the word of god. I'm still not sure he wasn't insulting me."

"He was not, I am sure," Ulrich bowed to him, "It must be a truly magnificent hoard to draw so much of a compliment from a man who has sworn himself so completely to the service of his god and his brother."

"It was," Tikrumpdel grumped, "That was before, well, everything." He rubbed his belly against the stones again. "You know, that decides it. I want to be out of here. Snoozing away the years was okay for the first century but I am bored now, bored and it feels like my head is half stuffed with cotton wool. I need some fresh air and to see the sun again. It might just stop this confounded itching!"

"An eminently sensible decision," Ulrich bowed again, "Now as for the transportation of your horde..."

"Aye, now there a rub," Tikrumpdel admitted, "It's not as big as in my glory days but I'm not going to be able to carry it in one claw. You are pretty good adventures to have survived down here this long, aren't you?"

"Absolutely," Ulrich smiled.

"Huh, we're prisoners," Thorian grunted. Tikrumpdel turned his head to the orc crossbreed, his eye ridges drawing down.

"You don't look like prisoners to me," he rumbled.

"Our journey is our prison," Thorian sighed, "And that Hartseer fellow Ulrich mentioned is our chief prison guard. He's probably going to be very angry with us as we have been a way for so very long."

"We were all naughty people," Ulrich admitted, "And our sentence was to serve on the King's Special but it is still an honor to serve."

"Honor to serve, ha!" Kaelin barked, climbing back to her feet, "I stole a loaf of bread."

"Speak for yourself," Thorian muttered, "Aye just bumped into someone."

Tikrumpdel cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at them. He could tell that they were down playing just how much they had been the naughty people. After a while of being bracketed by that level stare Kaelin began to fidget.

"Oh alright," she admitted, "The bread was the one that I was caught for."

Tikrumpdel kept looking at her until she looked away muttering and fidgeting.  It was so freaking unfair, just how were you supposed to win a staring competition with a freaking dragon? You felt like you were falling into those eyes, as if they could know everything thing about you.

"I have a proposition," Tikrumpdel said, "Something that could help both of our causes."

"I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine," Thorian said.

"That as well," Tikrumpdel nodded, "Though maybe scratching you might not be such a good idea. I think I might do a little too much damage." He flexed his claws, displaying the fact that, though they were well over grown, they were still wickedly sharp. "What I was thinking more was that, perhaps, I could loan out some of the items in my hoard to you... for a fee."

"A fee?" Kaelin exclaimed, "Just what do you think we could pay you with?"

Tikrumpdel stretched out his flabby neck and sniffed at her, her hair tossing in the breeze of his breath.

"You have gold hidden under those gloves and you are wearing something of gold around your neck," he stated, drawing his head back in. Kaelin opened her mouth to retort but he lifted a hand larger than most horse and carts.

"Don't try to fool a being who can smell gold," he advised.

"So you have gold," Kaelin folded her arms, glaring up at him, "And you still want us to pay you rent?"

Ulrich groaned and put his face in his hands. Kaelin's distinct lack of tact struck again. Tikrumpdel, however, did not flame her to a crisp. Instead, he shuffled awkwardly and he didn't quite meet their eyes.

"I haven't... I don't possess... actually that much gold," he muttered and mumbled, looking any where but at them then added more brightly, "But I do have some magic items."

"I can give you Jerry," Thorian grinned, showing off his big, strong teeth.

"I beg your pardon," Jeremiah glared, face darkening with blood. His beard bristled, almost glowing with power.

"Oh alright then," Thorian shrugged, "His servants then. I suppose you could use Nanny Tatters to go out hunting gold for you, then you wouldn't need to move your hoard and if someone gets lucky and puts Nanny Tatters out of her misery for a second time it's no biggy."

"I object!" Jeremiah stamped up to Thorian, "My servants are not yours to batter with, they are my servants, tied to me and only me. They obey only me. If you wish to borrow something from this good... person's hoard then you pay for it. Any more trying to sell my property and I will have no choice but to report you to the King for thief. I would like to see you be let go from active duty after that my good sirrah!" He was glowing red in the face.

 "Okay," Thorian grinned again, "You could cook up Jeremiah and ate him."

Jeremiah blustered, spluttering with indignancy, words completely failing him as he tried to come up with a retort to such a suggestion, anger throbbing through him.

"Tempting," Tikrumpdel twitched his snout from side to side, "But no. I do want to try and loose some of this weight."

Jeremiah sucked in a huge breath through his nose, lips pressed tight, hands balling into fists. He drew himself up, ready to launch into the words of the very worst curse he could think of...

Kaelin made a heaving noise, right in his ear.

Jeremiah span away, hands up to try and deflect some of the incoming vomit only there wasn't any in coming vomit.

"You flinched," Kaelin grinned at him. Jeremiah glared but it had broken his concentration on the wording for the curse.

"Any way," Kaelin turned to the vast red dragon, "If we don't want to borrow any of your stuff we don't have to pay?"

"Yes," Tikrumpdel admitted, shifting uneasily, reading which way the wind was blowing.

"What have you got?" Thorian asked, "That's what I want to know before we do the agreement thing."

"Well the way I figure it," Kaelin noted, "We haven't even agreed to move the hoard yet so we could just walk away from this right now and not be bothered with the extra hassle. After all, we have rather a lot on our plates already, I don't see why we should be taking on extra work that we don't have to."

"Oh alright!" Tikrumpdel exclaimed, "You can have one item free of charge in return for moving my hoard. Bare in mind though, that is one item between the lot of you, not one thing each. If you want more than one item we are going to have to discus rent terms, you understand?"

"Oh," Thorian pouted, "And here's me hoping for as much as I could carry."

"Oh don't think I haven't had that stunt pulled by a hero before now," Tikrumpdel barked, "I've no intention of being fooled twice." Smoke coiled from his nostrils to spiral into the air.

"One moment please," Kaelin held up a finger, "I wish to have a private communication with someone."

Without waiting for a reply she turned and pushed off from the ground, winging her way back over the bridge to the other side, where she ducked behind some rocks so that she was out of sight. She took off the locket and held it up so she could see the painted face properly.

"Charlotte?" she called, "You there?"

"Yes? Can I help you?" the painted figure of Charlotte Darling stepped into the frame from the side.

"We have something of a situation," Kaelin admitted.

"Why do I not feel that this is going to be good news," Charlotte frowned ever so slightly.

"Long and the short of it is that we have met an extremely large dragon down here in the Underworld," Kaelin tried to kept the debriefing as short as possible, "His Lordship decided to convince it to come to the upper world and it wants to move its hoard to the Wizard's Tower. I don't think we are going to be able to convince it otherwise now that it has latched on to that idea so could you warn Elisha and the others that this is going to happen now whether they like it or not. If you can bring a reply back toot sweet I might be able to delay us a little to give them time to prepare."

"I'll see what I can do," Charlotte nodded, "If you would give me a moment." She stepped sideways out of her picture frame.

As it was, it was more than a moment and Kaelin was just beginning to wonder if she was going to have to come up with some plausible excuse for the others when Charlotte stepped back into the frame of the little picture hidden within the locket.

"Mastersmith Elisha says that it can be done," Charlotte nodded, "We have even found some deep vaults within the tower that have a magical dampening field strong enough to hurt the Damned Souls. If a dragon's hoard is not safe there, it will not be safe any where. Your problem is going to be reaching here in one piece."

"How bad is it?" Kaelin asked.

"The people managed to get enough of the harvest in for seed stock," Charlotte reported, "And thankfully the attackers don't seem to have anything in the way of siege weapons so the tower gardens are undamaged but Elisha had the people pull back into the tower itself a couple of weeks ago. They are still defending the out wall but he didn't want anyone else caught in the crossfire if they forced another breach."

"Oh," Kaelin flinched and then went cold as the full implications smacked her between the eyes, "Please, for the love of every god there is, tell me that no one was bitten."

"They were," Charlotte's news made her groan and close her eyes, "But Elisha has them quarantined away from the Tower and the Damned Souls seem to be immune to the curse the werewolves carry. At least so far none of them have turned into more werewolves so we are stale mated in that regard. The werewolves cannot infect us but neither can Elisha use their bodies to create more damned souls but their Ash Elves allies seem to be suitable for conversion so we are just about holding the numbers steady."

"Okay," Kaelin nodded, "Thanks for the heads up and we'll be there as soon as we can with the heavy reinforcements. Wait one while I go talk to the others, there might be something more that I have to pass on to you."

She stood up and clicked the locket shut. She hid it below her clothes again before she winged her way back to the others.

"About the Wizard's Tower," she addressed Tikrumpdel directly, "I'm afraid that I've just remember one rather critical detail."

"Go on," Tikrumpdel rumbled, eyes narrowed.

"Just before we left to try and find out why the trade route to Nether Wallop had clammed up tighter than a duck's chaff they were preparing from a siege," Kaelin reported, "One of the reasons we were trying to find out why the trade route was suddenly tighter than a duck's fundament was because we were fairly sure the two events were linked, which they were, but we have been in the Underworld for so long, trying to sort the problem at this end that the battle has most likely started at the Wizard's Tower so there maybe some heavy lifting to get there. That is assuming you still want to go."

"A whole army that needs a slaying and disposing of?" Tikrumpdel rumbled on a deeper note, "Oh lead me not into temptation, I find the way myself. Surface food would probably be healthier for me any way. Alright, you've made up my mind, if you help move my horde without losing any of it you can have one magical item free of charge. Any more than that and we'll need some more negotiations, I haven't got enough of a horde to be giving it away for free."

"And the army that is making trouble up top?" Kaelin queried.

"As I said, surface food would probably be healthier for me and if not, then it would at least be a change of taste," Tikrumpdel replied, "I am so bored of the taste of Ash Elf. They are dry and bland and light, rather like chicken. I'm not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with chicken but imagine eating nothing but chicken for a century or so. It is now deadly, deadly, beastly dull. I'll drag myself all the way to the surface to taste something else. In fact I'll give you a lift if you want me to, free of charge and all."

"One moment," Kaelin held up a finger, "Call of nature." She winged away, back to her hidden nook among the rocks, clicking open the locket almost before she stopped. Thankfully Charlotte was still there waiting for her news.

"You have a dragon incoming," Kaelin informed her, "I hope you can get the time together to have one of those strong rooms ready for its hoard."

"We'll manage," Charlotte replied, "If we can expect a flying dragon inbound it will give the defenders the heart they need. It is hard to keep fighting when there seems to be no hope."

"Well it will definitely be a dragon," Kaelin admitted, "The flying part..." She waggled her hand in the age old expression of not being sure.

Charlotte frowned but then turned her head as if listening to something that only she could hear.

"Just be safe on your way home," she nodded to Kaelin, "Time is running out."

"We'll try," Kaelin stated, meaning both Charlotte's wish for them to be safe and the unspoken wish for them to hurry as much as they could but Charlotte had already side stepped out of the picture before Kaelin had fully formed the words. Kaelin stood but she wasn't reassured as she clicked the locket shut and slipped it back under her collar.

"All sorted," she smiled at the rest of the King's Special as she landed back with them, "Shall we see this hoard then?"

They frowned at her but then Tikrumpdel shifted and wasn't there a lot of him to shift. He shuffled sideways, engulfing the road beneath his girth, clearing the way up to the mouth of his lair.

"There you go," he mumbled, "Up you go but just bare in mind that if you try to take more than we have agreed to I will know and it will make me rather... hungry."

"My good Sir Dragon," Ulrich bowed so deeply that he had to catch his hat and turn the action into a fancy flourish to disguise the misstep, "We are, one and all, fully aware of the great honor that you do us, allowing us so much as to look upon your wondrous horde. It would be churlish of us indeed to try and take advantage of such a confidence."

Tikrumpdel smiled as Ulrich straightened.

"You have a silver tongue, my little friend," he grinned, "Are you sure that you are not part dragon?"

"I am not aware of being such," Ulrich admitted, "But my mother's people have such accusations leveled at them in the past; accusations such as harboring dhampirs, Fiend Fathered and puca born so I suppose it is not too much a stretch of the imagination to believe that there could be a dragonkin or too in my bloodline somewhere. As to which sort of dragon, heaven knows."

"If it was any dragon at all I would not be surprised if it was not a Tomb Dragon," Tikrumpdel chuckled, "Those ones are known for having the gift of getting the little folk to do what they want them to do. I don't suppose your family has any connection with Albion?"

"The Abandoned Isle?" Ulrich frowned, "I..." He thought about it, trying to remember if there was a link between the family trees that he had been made to memorize as a child and the lands of the Albion Empire. "Not directly but I think there was an ancestor from the Hibernia Free State and they were one of the first of the Providences to gain their independence from the Albion Empire."

"So it is possible," Tikrumpdel rumbled, "I did always wonder about Mockblight. It did seem to me that he enjoyed playing the part of a human too much to have ignored all the possibilities that comes with that."

"Mockblight?" Ulrich questioned.

"Armasar Mockblight," Tikrumpdel rumbled with a sniff of distaste, "The Doom of Albion, the Lord of the Fallen Empire, He-to-Whom-the-Undead-King-Bows. Built up an Empire and then brought it to total smash. The dwarfs said he laughed as the ritual was initiated and the population of the Isle started dropping dead one after another. Right vicious basket but you have to admit he must have had the gift of the gab otherwise someone would have questioned a three hundred year long life span."

"Unfortunately we small people can be quite blind to what should be blindingly obvious when ignoring the blindly obvious offers us something that we want," Ulrich admitted.

"Well in that case you are not the only ones," Tikrumpdel sniffed, "Any way, if we are going to start on this journey you might want to hurry up and start loading the stuff up. Go on, less talk, more do." He jabbed his thumb at the slope and Ulrich bowed again before turning to the others.

"Alright chaps, you heard the good dragon, let's get too it," he said. With nods they headed to the slope, Kaelin and Jeremiah taking to the air to avoid the toil because toil it was. Although Tikrumpdel's repeated belly scratching had compacted the stones and outright crushed some, it was still an uneven, steep slope, likely to turn an ankle if you were not paying attention. They struggled up it becoming achingly aware that today had once again been a long and strenuous day. Estella was right, none of them had been keeping a regular schedule and it was beginning to tell. Kaelin wondered if that was why she'd been too slow to avoid injury battling the spiders and Estella had purple bruises developing under her almond shaped eyes. Whether or not they were put on inactive duty after they made it back to the Capital after sorting out the mess in Nether Wallop, she was going to ask that they were allowed at least a week of rest before they set off on the next mission. They weren't going to be much use to the King if they were all dropping with fatigue.

They stood at the top of the scree slope and stared at the cavernous entrance to Tikrumpdel's lair. Kaelin pulled out on of the last light sticks and lifted it high. They pressed forward into the dark.

The tunnel was rough and the floor deeply rutted, gouged by claw marks and the drag trails of Tikrumpdel's vast bulk. It smelt of hot metal, warm rock and flame grilled meat. The tunnel opened out into the roughly spherical chamber of Tikrumpdel's cave, the walls marked by the same rough excavation.

"That is it?" Kaelin asked nobody in particular. Tikrumpdel was right, it was not impressive, the puny pile stacked against the back wall of the cave and barely more than a cart load of stuff.

Most of it seemed to be barrels, though Kaelin's nose informed her that many of the smallest barrels contained either honey or spices, which would fetch a hefty price up on the surface. Thorian found the larger barrels contained something that smelled suspiciously like that drink that Ulrich had given him back in the Wizard's Tower. He was not going there again any time soon so he left them well along. Quenril shook his head as he discovered a flag of the Veasel Clan leaning against the wall. The most materially valuable item seemed to be a dish of cheap silver and a glass globe that swirled with flakes of white when it was shaken.

"Well what's this?" Ulrich asked reflectively as he lifted something from the pile. It appeared to be a bracelet, a dark echo to the one that adorned Estella's wrist. That one was made of gold and emeralds, this was jet and a strangely dark metal. Ulrich lifted it to his nose and sniffed. He was right, it was oiled steel.

"Tell me, Quenril good chap," he walked over to the head of his Ash Elf body guards, "Do you have any idea of what this is? I think it is something magical, it has that sort of greasy feel to it."

Quenril took the bracelet and turned it over and over in his hands peering closely at the symbols etched around the ring of metal and gems.

"It appears to be a Bracelet of Limbo," he stated, "Rather rare even among our people."

"You don't say," Ulrich raised his eyebrows as Quenril handed it back.

"Yes," Quenril nodded, "Items that could induce invisibility in the wearer were fairly common among our people. It was one of the ways that sons could gain safety among our people; if they were good at crafting such items, if they showed promise as a Pupil of the Begetters then they would be more valuable to the women of the Clan."

Kaelin fiddled with the collar of her jerkin and Estella surreptitiously covered up the Bracelet she had taken from the Citadel of the Snake clan with a hand.

Quenril frowned as the chirruping of the talismans distracted him for a moment, his skin shading to a deeper blue as he picked up the tidal flows of guilty consciences but did not have the time to tease out the meaning of what he was hearing.

"So what's the difference between invisibility and limbo?" Ulrich asked.

"The way I understand it," Quenril explained, "Invisibility just means that you cannot be seen, an arrow being fired through the space you are not seen in will still hit you. A Bracelet of Limbo allows you to step outside of reality completely for a time. It is said that it is a strange place, where you cannot be affected but neither can you affect other things. It is said that the wearer of a good quality one can pass through walls and even hear snatches of conversations spoken around them but cannot so much as pick up a book or move a stone."

"That sounds interesting," Ulrich grinned and slipped the Bracelet on to his wrist, giving it a twist before Quenril could say anything.

Ulrich stumbled. It felt like he had just missed a step on a set of stairs.

"What the..." he said.

Around him the world had shifted to a strange brown sepia tone with strange ripples of the true colors moving through it like streamers blown by an unheard, unfelt wind. Around him his companions still moved but their forms with distorted, as if he was seeing them through a piece of malformed, yellowish glass. He could hear Quenril calling him by his voice sounded faint and far away.

What sounded a load closer where the screams.

Someone was screaming and not too far in the distance. Threading through the air from that direction were lines of that sick non-light that made the not real body of the dragon thing he kept seeing whenever Jeremiah said the name of his god. Ulrich's mouth went dry and a cold wave rippled through him as he realized that the only reason that thing wasn't here to greet him was because it was having fun with someone else but someone else wasn't having fun with it.

"No, nope," Ulrich snapped back to reality, "Not my style what so ever. I think I'll give that to someone who can use it better than I can."

"My Lord?" Quenril asked.

"Just a little problem that I am working through," Ulrich admitted, "I have my own reason for... not liking it whenever Dear Jerry mentions the name of his god."

Quenril shuddered, flicking his fingers in the sign of warding off evil and asked no more.

 Kaelin pulled on a long handle sticking out of the pile of Tikrumpdel's hoard. It turned out to be a lot longer than she had reckoned and she struggled with the leverage until she managed to set her hands right and heft it.

The pike was nearly twenty feet long, the shaft a smooth length of dark walnut wood, polished to high shine. The head, long, sleek and wickedly shape was made out of a strange metal that seemed to be particularly translucent, a faint blue glow radiating from its edges. Snow flakes formed and fell around it, melting as they dropped away from it to fall with little plops upon the floor.

She grunted and then the pike head dropped with a clang against the floor. An irregular circle of ice crackled into being, chiming with its sudden existence.

"Well that's not something that you see every day of the week," Kaelin observed, hauling the pike to the vertical position so she could manage it just about. She had to use two hands still but she could manage it just. She tapped over to the pool of ice, one tap forward with the pike butt, two steps, left foot then right foot, then another tap with the butt of the pike. She prodded the ragged edged circle of ice with a toe.

"Definitely don't see that everyday," she noted.

Jeremiah was rooting through the pile on the other side. He seized the edge of what he assumed to be a golden platter and pulled but as it slipped out of the heap he realized that it had straps attached to the concave side of it. He held it up by its rim and turned it round. It was a shield, a beautifully crafted golden shield, lighter than he expected it to be, its edge embedded with large gems set in claw clasp recesses but its center was strangely clear of design. He frowned and tilted the shield slightly. The blank center rippled, extremely subtly, but it did ripple. Jeremiah placed the point of the shield on the floor and held it up by one hand on the top edge of the rim. He tugged his beard, eyes narrowed.

One finger pocked the blank center. It rippled more noticeably. He tugged his beard some more.

Standing up he slotted his arm into the straps and took a good firm hold. He closed his eyes as he started muttering a pray to his god.

Thorian sniffed as he spotted something in the heap. It was carved out of reddish cherry wood and studded with chips of sparkling pink rhinestones. The shape of it reminded him of the small, pink pony that had bounced through the wall in the Grand Hall in the goturi city and told them that they were missing the party. Thorian scrunched up his face, wondering if he dared to pick up the club and have a go at hitting something with it. He wasn't sure that it wouldn't explode into confetti or maybe a ball made out of mirrors.

"Do you want to swoop items," Kaelin asked Ulrich, hobbling over with the pike, "I don't think that I'm cut out to wield this thing." The pike wobbled and threatened to fall. "See what I mean? I don't think I have had the training to use it and I can't see how I'd be able to climb up to an open window while carrying this thing."

"And why would you be climbing up to an open window?" Ulrich asked.

"Isn't that why I'm on this team?" Kaelin shot back, "I'm the sneak, you're the silver tongue, Thorian is the muscle and Jeremiah... Jeremiah is the creepy one who, possibly, may have to be the one who does the stuff we find horrifying."

"What do you mean?" Ulrich frowned.

"What if we find out the one powering the werewolves warping of the magic is a child? A magic born child," Kaelin asked, "Would you be able to strike down a child to save the kingdom?" She watched his face. "Yeah, we'd hesitate, we'd want to try to save the kid as well and we may not have that luxury. Jeremiah? Jeremiah on the other hand, he'll do it without a flicker of doubt. He'll kill something that can't fight back as easily as he breaths."

"That is a truly terrible thing to suggest," Ulrich shuddered.

"And I've seen kids who would kill a baby to limit the amount of competition they have to face," Kaelin stated, "There are kids out there who are born with something wrong in their heads. They are rare, most of the monsters are made, not born, but there are some, like my grandfather, who are just born wrong some how."

"How would you know that?" Ulrich frowned, "I wouldn't have thought someone like the image you have painted of your grandfather would have spoken much about his childhood."

"He didn't," Kaelin lifted a hand to the collar of her clothes and then had to grab the pike with both hands to stop it falling, "But if he is connected to who I think he is then, well, my grandmother wasn't just my grandmother."

Ulrich frowned, not understanding what she was getting at.

"She was also my great aunt," Kaelin stated.

"Oh dear gods!" Ulrich exclaimed.

"Yeah, what a mucked up little family have I," Kaelin smiled because if she didn't find the humor in the situation then she was going to either weep or vomit, "So there you have it, I'm the sneak, you're the talker, Thorian is the muscle and Jeremiah is the creep and do you want to have a go with this. I think it will go better with your fancy mounts that it will with me trying to climb up walls."

"Go on then," Ulrich agreed, still shaken by her disclosure and what he had heard when he tried the bracelet himself, "Let's have a go at this thing." He took hold of the pike with one hand and handed Kaelin the bracelet with the other.

Kaelin backed away, studying the circle of steel and jet as Ulrich started running through some pole arm drills. He seemed to be trying to use it in the same style as a quarter staff but its extra length was defending his training.

Kaelin slipped the bracelet on and with a whistle, gave it a twist.

 The strange sepia world surrounded her, Ulrich a shadowy form that seemed to move at a different time speed to her. Her ears twitched. She could hear his voice through a muted distance. It seemed to be coming to her in snatches and rips, almost like she was hearing him through a storm but she couldn't hear any wind. She turned her head. It seemed to her that she could hear someone screaming in the distance and she frowned because she could have sworn that it was one of the spider centaur things that had attacked them but that couldn't be right, Jeremiah had killed those things, hadn't he?

She did not want to think about that.

She turned to the wall to one side of the entrance tunnel. She didn't want to try this on a wall where she wasn't sure what was on the other side. Walking through three miles of rock may not be the most sensible idea she ever had. She walked to the wall and lifted her hands. She pressed her hands against the surface of the rock and pushed. Her hands sank into the wall. She frowned at the feeling. It was not painful but at the same time it did not feel pleasant. It was rather like sinking her arms into a great, big bowl of custard, cold custard at that.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward. The feeling of the rock oozing over her face made her twist her mouth. As she took another step into the rock she slighted open her eyes.

She opened them wide and a gasp escaped her, then she realized she could breath in here. It was a strangely heavy breathing, as if something was pushing against her chest but it was breathing. She looked round. In front of her she could see Tikrumpdel fidgeting at the base of the scree slope, while behind her she could see the others wandering around in the cave. With a grin she forged on through the thick air that was the solid rock of the cave wall. It was like wading through warm water, warm, thick water.

Her hands emerged out through the wall at the top of the scree slope. She was careful to make sure every piece of her, including all her clothes where out of the wall before she turned the bracelet back to the inactive setting.

"Where did you come from?" Tikrumpdel demanded with a start.

"Let's just say now you see me," Kaelin grinned taking hold of the bracelet, "Now you don't." She twisted the bracelet again and Tikrumpdel started again. After a moment he started hauling himself back up the scree slope, sniffing as he came, nostrils twitching as he tried to work out if she was just invisible.

Kaelin was already half way back through the wall.

"Kaelin?" Ulrich called frowning and stepping forward to wave an arm through the space where she had been. It didn't connect with anything. "Kaelin?" He frowned, turning to Quenril. "Do you have any idea where she's gone?"

"Undoubtedly she is in the limbo place," Quenril noted, "She will be back once she is sure that the bracelet works as it is said it does."

"So you are absolutely sure it wouldn't..." Ulrich started and then leapt nigh on half a yard up as Kaelin whistled behind him.

"Now you see me," she grinned as he came back down half a second after his pike had clattered to the ground.

"Yeash, Kaelin!" Ulrich exclaimed, "You could give a body a heart attack doing that!"

"Oh do you really think so?" Kaelin grinned and looked round the cavern. Thorian was still peering at the club he had found, poking it carefully with a finger. Estella was beginning to stack the barrels up by size, sorting the hoard out by size and type of object, getting it ready to shift. Jeremiah was stood, a shield strapped to his arm, his back turned to her. Kaelin grinned even broader and twisted the bracelet to the active setting. Moving through the weird sepia world she walked up behind Jeremiah, leaned in close to his ear and twisted the bracelet to the inactive setting.

Jeremiah leapt about five feet up and ten feet forward as someone wretched in his ear. He spun about, shield lifted to smack who ever it was, though he was fairly sure who it would be, only she wasn't there.

"I think that this is our keeper," Kaelin grinned as she reappeared behind Thorian.

"Well if you know that then how are we supposed to move all this stuff at once?" Thorian asked, scratching his scalp as he stared at the pile of Tikrumpdel's hoard.

"Do you not have that talkative bag any more, good Sir Thorian?" Tasnar asked as he looked up from helping Estella and Sabal from shifting the scattered heap into something more organized.

"Oh yeah, doh," Thorian slapped himself on the forehead and then unslung the said talkative bag, setting it on the floor.

"You!" the bag of scolding shouted, "You! You will not, you son of a witch, make slaves of us. We have no fear of yea. By land or by sea we will battle yea and slap your mother!"

 Thorian straightened up, mouth screwing up tight.

"May Aye burrow this?" he asked, grabbing the hand of the red horse club but he didn't wait for the answer, instead bringing it down with a mighty wack on the top of the bag of scolding.

The bag groaned, dented in the middle of its flap and rather more scuffed than when they first found it. It twitched its strap.

"Now are you going to be nice?" Thorian demanded.

"Don't..." the bag wheezed, "Don't count on it." It flipped its flap as one corner jiggled.

"Well in that case," Thorian lifted the club again.

The bag danced out of the way, corners jigging, flap waving, carry strap waving through the air as it bopped along.

"What the..." Thorian frowned.

"You idiot!" the bag shrilled, "That is that damn things magic! It makes people dance!"

Ulrich was turning a darker shade of tan, his lips pressed tightly together, Kaelin had her hand over her mouth and Estella was laughing until she cried as Thorian chased the dancing bag across the floor. Even the Ash Elves looked as if they were going to lose their usually stoic composure as Thorian lunged and grabbed and the bag jigged out of the way. Even when he finally managed to grab the boogieing knapsack it didn't end, the bottom of it continuing to jerk and jump as it was dancing on and Thorian had to fight to keep the top flap open with one hand while fighting off the carry straps attempts to whirl him into a tango with the other.

Kaelin lost it completely when she realized that the only person who was not watching this performance was Jeremiah, the priest stood there, shield on his arm, eyes screwed closed, apparently unable to even hear when was going on. Kaelin wound up on her butt, clutching her sides as Thorian tried to wrestle the hoard into the shindigging bag, a battle that it appeared that he was losing.

Kaelin looked at the show again and wondered if she should put money on the bag winning. Then she saw Sabal and Tasnar laying down bets on a rock shell and wound up laughing until she and Estella were sat back to back, tears streaming down their faces as they fought to breathe.

At last Thorian managed to squeeze the last of the hoard into the bag of scolding. The bag itself seemed to have run out of puff, although every now and then it would twitch slightly.

"Right," Thorian straightened up and rubbed the back of a wrist over his forehead, "What are we taking as our payment?"

"This," Kaelin stated, holding up her wrist with the steel and jet bracelet on it.

"Well I don't want this," Thorian tossed the red horse club into the bag.

"I'm still in two minds about this," Ulrich examined the pike some more, tapping spots on the floor and wall with the head, flash freezing patches of stone. He tried tucking it under one arm and gripping it to his side like a lance, couching like he was riding a horse. "Could do it," he mused, "But I'd need a saddle with some stirrups for it to really be effective and..." He looked at Peter and Weatherall. Peter didn't have a lot of clearance for a saddle on his back to include stirrups and Weatherall? It was hard to imagine what kind of saddle could go on Weatherall's shell.

"I'm not fussed so in it goes," he threaded the pike into the bag of scolding. It groaned but didn't say anything, for once.

"This would be most fortuitous," Jeremiah stated holding up the shield, "I say that I am allowed to have this."

"And you having a shield would be better because?" Kaelin asked.

"Well, my dear," Jeremiah smiled, "Seeing as you owe me one for making sure that you can still breath perhaps it is time that you behave in a less selfish manner than your usual demeanor."

"Less selfish?" Kaelin's eyebrows climbed for her hair line.

"Now I know that you were not exposed to proper behavior during your formative years and this has lead to an understandable lapse in your ability to think of others before yourself but now you are among more civilized people you need to exercise the ability to put aside the childish selfishness that has marked your life so far," he explained kindly.

"Oh really," Kaelin's face was deadpan.

"It is the mark of the child to think of themselves first, particularly in women," he smiled, "It is the mark of maturity to put the needs and wants of others first, always. This is why women are supposed to be married, so that their husbands can help them away from the instinctive need to think of themselves first and..."

Kaelin bent over and heaved, gagging and choking as if she was going to throw up his shoes again. Jeremiah shut his mouth sharpish and backed away, trying to keep his shoes clean or at least cleaner.

"Who's thinking about themselves first now?" Kaelin asked, straightening up, wiping her mouth, "And let me point out a few things starting with the fact that I did bring in a set of allies for the King's Special and they were fighting well for us until you murdered their leader. After that there is the fact that, unlike Thorian or Ulrich or indeed the bulwark that is your mighty self, I am a sneak and this bracelet would allow me to sneak that much better, including being able to reach the inside locked rooms."

"And just how does that help the team instead of just yourself?" Jeremiah smiled as if he were indulging an errant child.

"Oh just little things like being able to get into the room where our records are being kept," Kaelin smiled back, "After all, if the record of our crimes is erased then how can we be legally kept on the King's Special."

"Now that sounds good," Thorian nodded.

"And may I ask since when does the mighty Jeremiah get stuck in?" Kaelin continued, "A shield would be ore useful to Ulrich or Thorian."

"This is a Shield of Faith," Jeremiah snapped, standing as tall as he was able, "It allows me to accuse more of my god's power..."

"And what's that?" Kaelin dang near sneered, "Sacrificing those smaller and weaker than you?"

"That's what they are there for!" Jeremiah spatted, "Lesser beings are only permitted by the gods to exist to fuel the greatness of those stronger than them! That is what they are made for. You don't concerned the fear of the chicken when you put it in the cook pot!"

"Actually old boy there is a reason why there is a rift in the nobility over this business of fox hunting," Ulrich observed, "There are plenty that would side with you but there are also those that argue that you shouldn't hunt something that can't fight back, to pick on those smaller than you are is the act of the bully and you have obviously never seen the spurs on a fighting chicken. There are reasons why cock fighting is considered a blood sport."

"Aye trust Kaelin more than I trust Jerrus and there's a reason for that," Thorian folded his arms and scowled, "It's called Calypso."

"What?" Jeremiah frowned.

"Calypso, mah dog. Remember him?" Thorian asked, "Cause Aye do. Perhaps if you'd cared a bit more about may pet, I'd trust you more."

"I vote of Kaelin," Ulrich said, only half paying attention to the argument, spending more brain power on gazing at the gaping mouth of the exist tunnel. It had occurred to him to wonder how they were going to manage maneuvering Tikrumpdel back to the surface. It wasn't like he was tunnel sized and if they had to wait for him to excavate his way out of the Underworld then they could be in for a long wait and Kaelin was running out of time on that forfeit.

"I'll second that," Thorian nodded, "Hand it over." He held the bag open in front of Jeremiah.

"But... but..." Jeremiah protested.

"The Favored of the Matriarch has spoken," Quenril stated, stepping forward, one hand resting on his sword hilt.

"That and for all your praying," Tasnar observed, stepping up beside his brother, "The Shield has refused to attune to you."

"I beg your pardon?" Jeremiah demanded.

"The Shield has refused to attune to you," Tasnar repeated, "If it had attuned to you then the symbol of your god would have appeared in the center." Behind them Sabal arched his fingers to ward off evil. "It has not done so therefore the Shield wants to have nothing to do with your god. Are you going to try and force it to do so? Are you really willing to risk the back lash if it refuses you?" The question was sweetly put but there were claws hiding behind the syrup.

Grumbling Jeremiah stuffed the Priest's Shield into the bag and stomped out of the cave in a high old temper.

Giving the area one last sweep to make sure they hadn't missed anything, the rest of the King's Special followed him out, Thorian swinging the Bag of Scolding over his shoulder. It groaned again but kept silent.

They found Tikrumpdel half way back up the path, having a good old sniff over the area where Kaelin had appeared and then disappeared from.

"Ah," he said, when he spotted the bracelet clasped around her wrist, "That's how you did it."

"Yep," Kaelin grinned and held her hand up, "This is the one we decided upon as payment. That alright with you?"

"It was the agreement," Tikrumpdel grumbled and then sighed, "I hope you realize how hard it is to give up any part of my treasure. It goes against the grain to let any one take some, especially when I don't have that much to give."

"Tell you what old boy," Ulrich noted as he started walking down the slop, "The pike and the shield would definitely be useful to the military so how about after we sort out the doings at Nether Wallop we drop a word to his Majesty that you have some items that you are willing to rent out. After all a King is going to have access to much more gold than we will probably see in a life time and I'm sure that you could hammer out the details of a proper written up contract with him, including all the clauses for damage and breakage and the such."

"Now that sounds like an idea," Tikrumpdel agreed and slid on his belly back down the slope to give them room.

Climbing down the slope was an interesting experience, some of it done sliding upon the backside and it unfortunately gave them an insight into how much of it was actually made up of pellets made out of suits of Ash Elf armor that had been washed clean in a super strong acid bath and then crushed into these rounded lumps.

"I take it that the locals didn't know when to leave you well enough alone?" Ulrich asked.

"You would think that after the first army wound up in my belly that they would take the hint and leave a body well enough alone," Tikrumpdel observed, shuffling round so he was facing the way that the King's Special had approached his lair, "But no, they kept lining up to try it and not a decent piece of loot between the lot of them. Inconsiderate little fleas."

"It seems to be a trait of a lot of people who believe that they are greater than everybody else," Ulrich noted, "Now old boy, this is just a logistical question, but what path do we use to get out of here with you?"

"Same way I got in," Tikrumpdel smiled, "The river, only this time I'll be heading up it."

"Ah that makes perfect sense," Ulrich noted, frowning slightly as Tikrumpdel started hauling his bulk along the road, claws gouging into the wall and crushing the balustrade to dust as he heaved and pulled his bulk along the wide way. The King's Special and their allies followed along behind him, staying far enough back that they were out of the way of the sweeps of his thick tail.

The bridge creaked alarmingly as Tikrumpdel dragging himself along, bringing to pant with the effort of moving. He did paused for a second to catch his breath near the end of the bridge but a sharp, worrying bang echoed around the cavern.

"Oh booger it," Tikrumpdel grunted and lugged himself off the bridge. The King's Special picked their way over it very, very carefully as Tikrumpdel paused for breath again and then decided on trying a different way of moving, bracing himself up on his front legging and swinging both arms forward at once, bracing his tail slightly forward at the same moment, using his falling weight to ripple himself forward. The noise of blubber slapping off of rock was deafening but it was faster than dragging hiself hand over hand. He paused again for breath but set off again as the King's Special catch up with him.

"I have got to lose weight," he grunted as he reached the space in the balustrade and stopped again to catch his breath.

"I'd hold back a minute chaps," Ulrich advised as Tikrumpdel started, shuffling himself round, trying to pivot in, what was to him a small space.

"Why?" Estella asked. Jeremiah however, understood in an instant.

"Gerard, light!" he snapped, pointing out over the drop of the slop. Gerard took flight and buzzed off into the darkness, illuminating the path dropping smoothly down to a wide shelf beside the river. The bank of the river however...

Tikrumpdel gave into his weight hanging over the edge of the drop and started sliding down the slope, picking up speed as he did so.

"Oh booooooooooooooger it!" he yelled and a second later he shot off the edge of the shelf of the rock to splash down into the river with his front half, his snout smooshed up against the  far cave wall, his chins resting on the tumbled remains of the block house that had fallen off the edge of the cliff above. Water sheeted up and rained down with the force of a waterfall.

"Ow," Tikrumpdel muttered and pulled his face off of the rock wall, wiggling his snout as the water backed up on his right side, suddenly impeded by a dam of flesh.

For once, Jeremiah wasn't the only one struggling to suppress his laughter as Tikrumpdel's butt wiggled from side to side and then shambled round to flop of the embankment into the suddenly shallower water downstream. The river bubbled up round his shoulders and then settled into a new flow level, although it was still backed up in front of him. He rocked his mass over until his blubbery shoulder with bunched up against the wall of the river bank.

"Anyone want a lift?" he asked as the King's Special walked down to the rock shelf.

"I'll go by dragon!" Kaelin grinned after a moment, imagining what her grandfather's face would look like if she rocked up on the back of this big boy. Yeah, she doubted that Tikrumpdel could fly but even so, he'd look terrifying smashing his way though the trees to reach the battle lines of the werewolf clan. And she could be riding on the back of his neck, making Haggis roar to the heavens as they brought the fire and the flame. She scrambled up that soft shoulder, using her wings to help her make it up the slope. His scales were surprisingly slippery.

"Oh Booyah!" Thorian beamed and bounded forward only to slip and smack down on Tikrumpdel's shoulder, slipping back down to the rock shelf.

"You okay there?" Tikrumpdel asked. Thorian humphed and tried again, this time taking it slower and using his hands as well, only trying to stand back up once he was up on the broad expanse of Tikrumpdel's back, the spines of the dorsal ridge nearly lost in the extra padding that seemed to be fairly evenly distribute around his personage.

"Hum," Ulrich hesitated, "As much as I appreciate the offer I don't wish to have to abandon my crew and I doubt that you'll want the likes of Marmaduke climbing around up there."

"What are you babbling about?" Tikrumpdel twisted his head about to sniff at the automaton. Marmaduke whirred and tilted his head from side to side in response. "He doesn't seem to be very large and the crab is hardly an issue. If he is the sort to help clean a larger body, I have a patch between my wings that I just cannot get it to shed properly. It's ruddy itchy. Might have a difficultly in getting them up there though."

"That will not be an issue," Quenril smiled, eyeing up some of Tikrumpdel's deeply embedded thorn like spikes, Tasnar and Sabal already unreeling their climbing ropes.

"What have you in mind chaps?" Ulrich asked.

In reply Tasnar and Sabal cast their ropes high, looping the thorny protuberances, leaning back into the slop, bracing themselves against the ropes, walking up Tikrumpdel's shoulder with steady tread.

"Huh," Thorian grunted, "Aye could have done with that."

The two Ash Elves leaned forward and lunged to catch the thorny scales just as the rope loops threatened to slide off them because of the change in direction of the load on them. They looped one arm through the ropes, braced with two hands and kicked off, bounding forward and up so that they feet landed on the top of the thorns and then the next bound had them up on the part of the slope that was leveling off and so not threatening to tumble them back down to the rock shelf.

"Would Lady Estella like a hand up?" Sabal called back down, checking to make sure the rope hanged low enough.

"Lady Estella would," Estella smiled up at him, her talismans dancing around her as she took hold of the end of the rope. Her assent was slower and less graceful than the Ash Elves, her grip on the rope over tight with nerves but it was slow and steady as Quenril busied himself starting to rig up Marmaduke with the end of Tasnar's rope. The talismans chirruped and twittered their encouraged and reassurance as she climbed higher. She smiled as she took Sabal's hand to help her up and over the last stretch.

"Thank you good sir," she said as she stepped passed him and settled herself on a cushioned patch near the dorsal ridge. The scales were as warm as a stone pavement that had been baking in the sun for the best part of the day, the heat soaking through clothes made damp by the fogs and mists of the cavern.

"Told you'd come around eventually," Tasnar winked at Sabal. Sabal looked away and blushed. Below, Quenril frowned and shook his head as he picked up on his cousin's embarrassment. He would have to remind his younger cousin to keep it as a distance admiration. Lady Estella was currently claimed by a dragon and they did not tolerate their hoard being poached. Pushing that thought aside, he concentrated on tying off the end of Sabal's rope in the harness he had improvised around Marmaduke.

"Ready?" he called up.

"Ready!" the other two called back and then pushed themselves off down the slope of Tikrumpdel's shoulder. The ropes caught over the two thorny protuberances they had used earlier and then they were running over the scaly spines as the two Ash Elves dropped and Marmaduke rose up the slope, whistling like a kettle at the sudden change. Ulrich grinned and kneed Peter forward.

Tikrumpdel shivered slightly as the giant centipede trundled up and over his scales.

"That tickles," he grinned.

"Only be a moment sir," Ulrich reassured as he caught hold of one of the ropes tied around Marmaduke and held on, helping to pull him the last of the way up. Marmaduke buzzed and whined as Ulrich set about reclaiming the ropes from around him, guiding Marmaduke and Peter to the patch of thicker back scales between Tikrumpdel's wings.

"Best to stay here chaps," he told them, "Don't want you falling off on the way."

Below Quenril was flicking the end of his own rope at Weatherall. As he hoped the giant crab grabbed the rope and pinched it as hard as he could. Quenril took up the slack and then jerked the rope back and forth, making it ripple in the air. Weatherall grabbed it with both sets of pincers.

"Watch out below," Thorian called, dangling one of the ropes down over Tikrumpdel's shoulder. The huge red dragon seemed to be quite content to let them get on with embarking without hassling them, his head plunged under the surface of the water. From the ripples of his throat, Kaelin was fairly sure he was attempting to drink the river dry.

"Thank you good sir," Tasnar seized the rope and swarmed up it, Sabal following once he had reached the top. Quenril started up once he was sure that both his kin were safely on board and that Weatherall was well and truly engaged with hanging on to the rope. Once at the top, the three Ash Elves, Thorian and Ulrich started pulling on the rope.

"One, two and haul away," Ulrich started singing. The Ash Elves frowned at him but Thorian picked up the old work song, bellowing along and hauling in time. Gradually the Ash Elves picked up the rhythm. 

"One, two and haul away,

Will I ever see my pay?

One, two and haul away,

 Out in the sun all day.

One, two and haul away,

Begging for my girl to stay.

One, two and haul away,

Feeling my strength start to fray.

One, two and haul away,

I'll take the money, if I may." 

 Weatherall waggled his eye stalks as they pulled him up and over the rolls of Tikrumpdel's shoulder, apparently confused about how he had managed to get up there. The haulage party frowned back, staring at the Ash Elf puppet and the vigor pack barer where the clung to Weatherall's shell. Weatherall twitched as if he wondered if he should try to scuttle back down but then he spotted what Peter was up to.

"Peter!" Ulrich called, starting towards the centipede, "Not a good..."

Peter's mandibles scissored through the greyish area of scales with the slow, deliberate precision of a horse doctor clipping a hoof to the right shape.

"Ahhhhh," Tikrumpdel lifted his head from the water, "That's better. I've not been able to reach that spot in an age. Thank you which ever one of you that was." Peter continued to sheer through the improperly shed area of scales, a whiteish fluid that smelt more than slightly stale to Kaelin's sensitive nose leaking from the rent. Weatherall carefully picked his way forward and took hold of the closest loose edge, tugging on it. Peter reared up, mandibles open but Weatherall also rose up, one claw held wide.

"Now chaps, less of that," Ulrich said sharpish, putting a hand on both of their shells. After a moment they settled back to the task of picking the big dragon clean but kept a jaundiced eye on each other.

"All aboard for the surface?" Tikrumpdel asked, craning his head round as far as he could to check on his passengers. The sound of wings resounded as Jeremiah settled himself at the base of Tikrumpdel's neck.

"Of course we are, now that we are riding in state," he smiled through his bread at the big dragon. Tikrumpdel narrowed an eye at them, not entirely convinced by Jeremiah's tone, possibly picking up the clue from Thorian's look of concern but he straightened out his neck and started wading up the river.

The bridge was something of a tight fit. His head and shoulders just about fit through but the gap was only just big enough for his ribs, pushing the rest of his paunch down his ribs, making it bulge up until he resembled a squeezy tube that had been half squeezed. The river rose, blocked by this mass in its way, bubbling up and up his chest as he pulled and squished and squeezed himself through the gap, grunting and groaning as he went, the roll of fat gradually being pushed further and further down his body.

"I say, good chap," Ulrich frowned, "Are you alright?"

"Blasted bridge," Tikrumpdel grunted, the water up to his chin, "Damn thing has definitely shrunk while I had my nap." 

Estella clapped her hands over her mouth as her kirin talisman whinnied a description of Tikrumpdel's back legs being pushed out straight behind him, his feet turned sole up, wiggling frantically as the bulge rolled down to his knees.

There was a definite pop as he came loose and then the roar of water refinding its level as the river rushed passed his shoulders.

"Ah that's better," Tikrumpdel sighed and started crawling forward again, hand over hand, the river lifting him slightly and making it easier to slide along. The King's Special and their allies settled back to enjoy the much smoother ride as the cavern opened out and the light from Jeremiah's turning sigil, though it was sickly and uncomfortable, shone out illuminating the pillars and fans of drip stone that stood all around them. Them didn't talk much as the current gurgled and chuggered round their living raft. It was hard to think of something to say in the face of such awe inspiring natural architecture. The mind became quiet as it tried to accept what it was seeing and the vast depth of time that surrounded it.

Unfortunately there were those that just could not appreciate beauty, no matter how much of it surrounded them.

"That's funny," Tikrumpdel muttered, lifting his head from having slurped up another mouthful of drink.

"Oh and what is this humorous thing?" Jeremiah asked with his usual honey sweetness.

"I could swear I could taste Ash Elf in this water but that shouldn't be, unless..." he trailed off, peering ahead and put on a burst of speed, pushing in a space where the passage of the river narrowed between some deposits of harder rock and there for deepened, giving him a great depth to work with, his bulk beginning to rise off the river bed as the water mass began to be enough to give him buoyancy.

The King's Special looked around and then clustered together near the center of his back, where they had the widest expanse of flesh to balance on before they had to start worrying about sliding off.

The water began bubbling and babbling as it was forced between the tall banks of stone, the rippled colors shining as Tikrumpdel's passage pushed water before him and sent it rolling up the bank as it poured around his shoulders. Then he sank into a deeper, broader pool of water where either a fissure had filled with water before it ran over or a more reactive rock had dissolved in the water and left a hollow to be filled. The water rose up until he was swimming along with the water running along his top lip, steam rising from his teeth as the water heated in the heat of his breath, the wake of his passage stretching out behind him.

Kaelin stood up, ears swiveling as she listened to the echoes.

"What is it?" Ulrich asked but she hushed him. Intrigued Ulrich stood up as well, Thorian following suit.

"Well that can't be good," he noted, hand going over his shoulder for his sword.

"They certainly don't know when to give up," Jeremiah rose and spread his wings wide, hands pressed together in prayer.

Down the river the rafts came, the faces of all the Ash Elves on board them showing the mark of the savagely reshaped noses of the Bat Clan above their savage grins, the log poles in their hands fending off the rock walls of the river as they came. What they were yelling was indistinct in all the over lapping echoes but it wasn't hard to guess what their intentions were.

Kaelin looked around with a frown. There had to be a different way of handling this, she was sick of nearly dying because people weren't willing to leave her alone. She spotted what she wanted and pushed off from Tikrumpdel's back, spreading her feathered pinions as she soared away from the wallowing dragon. Behind her the Bat Clan Elves cat called and hooted at her but she didn't care, this time she wasn't running away and leaving her friends in the lurch. She dropped out of the air, crouched and managed to pick up a pillow sized rock. She folded her arms around it and had to do a running start to get back into the air. Her face twisted but she locked the sound of effort behind her teeth. She swooped out over the rafts.

"Right, flat faces," she called down to the Bat Clan Elves, "Either you pass on by us without a problem or it is going to start raining rocks!"

 The cat calls and hollers quietened down as they realized that she was deadly serious. Several faces were marked with the calculations of how fast she could find new rocks, others were glancing down at the lashings binding the rafts together, clearly wonder how many pillow sized rocks it would take to knock them loose and dump them all in the icy water.

"That and if you don't pass on by without a fuss then Mister Big is going to eat you up," Kaelin grinned through the pain building in her chest.

The Bat Clan Elves gazed up at her and then turned as the ripples jostled the rafts. Tikrumpdel was pushing harder at the water, lifting his head clear of it and grinning at them. So, so many teeth that gleamed in the light rippling up from the water, the reflection of Jeremiah's rotting sigil shining off the ripples and eddies, turning the cavern in to a dancing maze of light.

Up above Kaelin wobbled in the air. The extra weight was really beginning to get to her. She saw some of them looking up at her, eyes narrowed.

"Oh it's so heavy," she grinned, pretending to nearly drop it. Several of them dived out of the way, punting poles forgotten and falling into the river but a couple of others reached for their hand bows.

The cavern rang with Tikrumpdel's in drawn breath then he plunged his head under the water.

The stream of roiling water shoot arrow fast across the pool, cutting between the rafts and erupting through the surface. The rafts staggered in the water as the steam punched upwards, throwing the Bat Clan Elves off their feet and someone screamed as they pitched into the fountain of super heated water. Ripples cut and chopped across the surface of the water as the rafts rolled and pitched in the surf. There was a resounding crack as something gave way on one of the rafts and suddenly some of them were struggling to hold their craft together.

The echoes receded and left behind a quiet moaning.

The Bat Clan Elves glared up at Kaelin as they grabbed the punting poles they could reach. Glaring at the King's Special, they punted the rifts on, one on either side of Tikrumpdel but if they were thinking of divide and conquer, they were most mistaken. This group of adventures had been working together long enough to be able to make a decision without speech. Jeremiah stood at the base of Tikrumpdel's neck, the sigil spinning up faster and faster, reflections of his one true god shining in its light, Ash Elf puppet on his left and vigor pack barer on his right. On Tikrumpdel's right side Quenril and his kin knelt, bolts already loaded in their bows, their targets already picked. Ulrich beside them, blades at the ready, cocksure grin on his face. Thorian anchored the left side, Estella standing beside him, the light dancing around her hands as she stood, stance wide and strong, talismans circling behind her, channeling the power. Peter reared beside her, mandibles clacking, Weatherall showing off his claws. The Bat Elves on that raft did think about it, they really did think about it but then Estella's smile became the grin of a serial killer, her eyes turning utterly and totally black. They thought better of it at that point, punting on faster, Kaelin shadowing them from above.

"Thank you," she called as the rafts disappeared into the distance, "We should do this again real soon." She waited for a few more minutes until she was sure that they would have too much trouble fighting the current to reach them easily and then she let go of the rock. The sloosh as it smacked into the water bounced back and forth across the cavern. Tired and aching she turned on a wing tip and glided back toward Tikrumpdel's broad back. She landed awkwardly and stumbled.

"Are you okay?" Estella asked as she limped along the back ridge towards them.

"Tired, sore, hungry," Kaelin admitted, "Should have dropped my pack before I tried that stunt." She sighed and sat down, slipping off her backpack and hooking the straps over one of the dorsal ridges. She dug in it for a moment and fished out travel bread and cheese. Without a word, Estella sat beside her and handed her, her own water canteen. Kaelin nodded and then drank.

"Lay down on your front," Estella advised as Kaelin finished eating and started nodding.

"What?" Kaelin asked.

"Can't you feel how warm he is?" Estella asked, laying a hand on Tikrumpdel's back. It was like touching a hot soup mug, "Lay down on your front, the heat will help loosen up those flight muscles."

Kaelin looked like she didn't believe Estella but as she'd found it more comfortable to sleep on her front now any way she did as suggested, stretching out along the dorsal ridge shuffling into a comfortable position as her eyes drifted shut. Behind her she could here the slow rip as Weatherall and Peter continued with their work of picking years, decades, centuries of dead skin build up off of Tikrumpdel's back. The work was some what grim but the steady pace of it was some what reassuring as it meant that there was nothing distracting them from their purpose of stuffing their faces.

Kaelin took a deep breath and breathed it out. With her eyes closed she listened to the ambient sounds of the cavern. She frowned slightly as she rest on Tikrumpdel's scales. They were softer than she'd expected, more like a tougher leather than hard stone. The motion of him rocking underneath her was rather soothing. Ah, that's what she could hear, it was his heart beat. It sounded like the rush of air or water in the vastness of the cavern but at fair to regular a beat to be natural. Kaelin tried to keep her ears open on her surroundings but that rhythmic sound pulled her down, the weighs on her eyes gradually pulling the rest of her lower into the darkness. His heartbeat, the warmth, the soft sponginess of his extra weigh, Kaelin couldn't remember being this comfortable in an absolute age, maybe never. It was most likely never but as she sank fully into the dark something bubbled up passed her. A woman's voice lilting a soft, gentle song.

"Go to sleep my baby,

Close your little eyes,

Angels are above you,

Watching from the skies.

Moon is slowly rising,

Stars begin to peep,

So close your eyes my baby,

Now it's time to sleep." 

 It was sausaging ridiculous but Kaelin had the weirdest sensation that it was being sung to her. She wanted to shake her head at that notion but it was too heavy to move.

 "Um Kaelin? Kaelin?" a voice was calling her name.

"What?" she grumbled.

"As far as I can make out you have been asleep for roughly ten hours and I need someone else on watch with me." It was Ulrich. It had to be Ulrich.

She sat up and yawned, stretching her jaws until they cracked. She looked around to see Estella passed out near her, while towards Tikrumpdel's tail Quenril and his kin were settling down to sleep. Tikrumpdel was still pulling himself along, hand over hand. The river was broader but more shallow here, making it more difficult for him as his belly scraped over the rock of the river bed and he had to push against the water mounting up in front of him as it fought to find a way round him.

Ulrich held out a bowl of water to her.

"That for drinking or what?" she demanded, bleary eyed and groggy.

"Its cold straight from the river," he said, "I figured that you might want to wash your face to wake up a little."

She grunted wordlessly but scooped water from the bowl. It was icy cold, making her gasp but she was more awake once she'd caught her breath.

"Better?" Ulrich asked.

"Awake," Kaelin admitted and then accepted his hand, walking with him to between Tikrumpdel's surging shoulder blades, where the original King's Special had gathered in a small huddle as their allies took their turn to sleep. Peter and Weatherall was still picking away at badly shed tissue as Marmaduke kept an eye on them.

"Aye don't think I've slept like that since we left Myslynn's fancy place," Thorian grinned as they munched cold travel rations for breakfast.

"Oh, wasn't the sleep we had while our little hosts carried us from their city good enough for you?" Jeremiah asked, alluding to their experience with the goturi.

"Nah," Thorian shook his head, "I thought I was awake the whole time. Felt like I was awake when I was dangling off that big grey thing so no, didn't feel like I slept at all while we were doing that."

"I'd agree that it wasn't the best nights sleep I've ever had," Ulrich noted, gazing round at the pillars and sculptures of drip stone. After a while he went and fetched a book from his pack. He flipped back and forth for a while until he found the section he was apparently after and then settled back to read.

For a long while there was just the quiet made of the flow of water, the drip of moisture, the breathing of the big beast upon who's back they rode. It was rather nice to just have some time to sit and watch the world go by.

"Funny taste in this water," Tikrumpdel rumbled.

"Oh? And what sort of funny taste would that be?" Jeremiah asked.

"Not sure," Tikrumpdel admitted, "It is mostly human but there is something else within it, a sort of spiciness. Definitely sage and rosemary. Onion as well but... Hum, I would say something woody, maybe willow? Not sure."

Kaelin stood up, peering ahead into the gloom.

"There!" she suddenly cried out, pointing into the gloom.

"There what?" Thorian started to his feet as well but Kaelin had already thrown herself off of his back and spread her wings. Her chest muscles burned as she took flight but she wasn't going to give up on what she had spotted laying half in and half out of the water, especially as she was sure it wasn't just a bundle of rags. She was right it wasn't.

The young woman lay half in and half out of the river, face blue with the cold but she was still breathing, a harsh, raspy sound but she was still breathing. Kaelin crouched and studied her. Her hands were a working woman's hand strong fingers with the rough skin of someone used to planting crops and harvesting autumns bounty, her feet bare and tough soled but her face was quite pretty for a working class woman, her hair thick and luxuriously black, almost blue, like a raven's wing.

Kaelin frown and move the thick locks from where they had draped over the young woman's neck. The wolf sat up and snarled but not at the young woman laying in the stream.

Someone had done their best to strangle her. The bruise was a deep blue tinted purple that wrapped nearly all the way round her neck, vivid against the paleness of her skin and Kaelin recognized the print of fingers. She wanted to find the bloke who had done this and snap every bone in his hands. She wanted to cripple him for life and then kick him out into the wide world until he understood what it felt like to be the small, powerless one who couldn't rest at night because he was always afraid of who was lurking round the corner.

She didn't. Instead she picked the young woman up in her arms and flew back across the water to Tikrumpdel, the smell of river water and pond weed filling her nostrils as the young woman's clothes dripped.

"What is that?" Tikrumpdel rumbled.

"Not food if that is what you are thinking," Kaelin said sharply to him, "It is someone who has been badly treated."

"Didn't say I was interested in them as food," Tikrumpdel pouted as he pushed on, Kaelin alighting on his back, "And I do understand that until they prove otherwise you are going to treat them as a companion."

"Well that is mighty kind of you," Thorian said.

"Oh puff," Tikrumpdel snorted and sent a stream of smoke and steam spiraling towards the ceiling, "I didn't spend all those years in  Nalblahal being deaf and blind. I do understand that small people feel the need to be with other small people and I do understand that there are different levels of attachment between small people depending on how much you trust each other to be loyal and nonthreatening and useful to each other. She is a small person and she is, at the moment, not a threat. Therefore you will care for her because she may care for you in the future. You help her for now, until she proves that she is a danger or proves that she is useless to you. That is how small people work. How hold on a minute." They did so, Ulrich calling for Marmaduke to hold on to the three Ash Elves and Estella snaking out an hand to hold on to a dorsal spine as Tikrumpdel put on a burst of speed and charged a narrow gap. He bulk rode up and over the pinch point, avoiding the necessity of being squeezed through it by riding up and over the river's banks were they came towards each other. His belly sagged and drooped through the gap and then he grabbed the stone to either side and with the rippling motion of a massive seal, hauled himself over and through to splash back into the flow.

Estella stood up and came forward as their transport settled back into his normal rhythm of motion. She stared for a moment at the woman held in Kaelin's arms.

 "Blankets!" Estella turned and started rummaging through her pack, "Kaelin, do you have any?"

"In my pack, assuming that didn't go over board a moment ago," Kaelin replied.

"Nope, on a dorsal spine," Estella started going through it as well, her own blankets draped over her arm already.

"What are you doing?" Thorian asked.

"She needs to get out of those wet clothes," Estella snapped as she pull the blanket out, "Or the cold is going to kill her. Kaelin bring her over here and lay her down." Kaelin did so. "Now hold this up so we have some privacy." She tossed Kaelin one of the blankets and she did as instructed, trying to make sure the blanket was spread as wide as possible. Thorian immediately spun round and glared at Jeremiah until the fat priest took the hint and turned his back as well. Ulrich settled back down with his book to make sure his eyes were some where decent. That and he had found a very interesting entry in the theology section of Governor Risgath's book about the Ash Elves. It seemed that they did have a trickster god, or to be more accurate, goddess. Trakamhini was the goddess of the moon and the hunt, the dance and swordplay, a beautiful maiden who tried to lure the Ash Elves to the surface with her song and encouraged them to stay there, turning their back on the strength and power of their true gods. She could possibly exactly what he needed.

Ulrich frowned, looking around as the heat below his butt increased. Tikrumpdel was sucking in breath after breath, the water around him beginning to steam as it flowed passed his sides.

"Where's the danger?" Ulrich snapped the book shut and started to stand.

"No danger," Tikrumpdel replied, "Just stoking the fires."

"Um, why?" Ulrich asked after a moment.

"The Void Dragon's host said the girl needs warmth," Tikrumpdel shrugged, nearly pitching Ulrich off balance, "I can provide warmth."

"That makes sense," Ulrich admitted, "Thank you." He sat back down and then he stood up again, patting against the seat of his trousers. Once he was sure his pants were not on fire he went to find another patch of scales were the temperature wasn't quite so high.

"Need that blanket now," Estella said to Kaelin and took it from her, folding it half to form a triangle before tucking it in around the young woman's shoulders, arranging it as a high collar around her neck and pinning it in place. Kaelin nodded as she surveyed Estella's work. One blanket to make the skirt, one to make a shoulder-less stola and now the third to make a shawl. Simple, practical and most importantly, warm. With the heat rising from the dragon below them it should beat back the chills as fast as possible. Now it was a question of just waiting and seeing what happened.

The cavern was still as massive as ever as Tikrumpdel crawled and slithered through it, echoing with the sounds of water as the light they shone broke into places that hadn't seen illumination for hundreds of years. Kaelin and Estella stayed sat with their new passenger, Thorian joining them to keep an eye on Jeremiah but the priest had returned to his seat on the base of Tikrumpdel's neck and was grandly ignoring them. Quenril and his kin were beginning to wake and stretch out before she started stirring.

The eyes that looked at them from under their thick lashes were smoky grey and full of fear. She held still, watching them all, a rabbit caught in the gaze of a predator, frozen still, waiting to see which way she should run. She watched them, waiting but as none of them  made a move towards her she started to relax a little.

"I don't blame you," Kaelin sat back against the dorsal spines at the young woman's feet, "I don't trust half of us myself."

The young woman turned her head to frown at Kaelin but Kaelin gave no sign of being upset by her scrutiny. After a while she tried to sit up but it was a struggle.

"Hup you come," Thorian smiled friendly like and reached over the dorsal ridge to put his hands under her arms and help her sit up. She tensed but Thorian let go and walked round to step over the dorsal ridge to sit down and keep an eye on her. The young woman frown and tried to speak but croaked. She coughed, a hard raking sound that rasped in her throat.

Kaelin looked away, not wanting her to see the scowl on her face and mistake it for anger at her. Kaelin's anger was reserved for the basket who had attacked her. The piece of scum had made a damn good job of it. Kaelin's knuckles cracked and she had to loosen up her grip as her claws started forcing their way out of her finger tips. If they ever met the piece of scum then he was going to have a very bad day.

"Hey, Ulrich," Thorian called, "You still have that ever full kettle thingy?"

Ulrich looked up from his book.

"I believe so," he answered, "Why?"

"Someone here needs a cup of tea," Thorian stated, standing up and walking his way over the springy surface of Tikrumpdel's back. Of all of them, Thorian seemed to have the least amount of trouble balancing on the soft and yielding surface. Ulrich wondered, as he started digging through his pack, whether it was because Thorian was used to walking on snow pack.

"I have the tea pot as well," Ulrich noted as he handed the kettle over and went back to digging for the tea caddy, "I wouldn't mind a cup myself."

"Right," Thorian grinned and fished in the bag of scolding for something.

"What you want now, sausage fingers?" the bag barked but it didn't have the furor of its earlier efforts.

"Hey mister dragon," Thorian called stepping up on to Tikrumpdel's shoulder, hooking the handle of the kettle between two of the barbs on the head of the Ice Pike, "Could we have some fire, please?"

"That depends," Tikrumpdel grinned, "Where and what is the target?"

Estella put a comforting hand on the young woman's.

"Don't worry," she smiled, "He's one of the friendly ones and we have a bargain with him. He tries to funk us over? We have control of his hoard so we can funk right back."

The young woman just stared and then frowned, lifting a hand to pat at something in the air around Estella's head. Estella frowned back.

"I felt that," she said, despite the fact that the young woman hadn't actually touched her.

"Here's the target," Thorian swung the ever pouring kettle out on the end of the ice pike so that it dangled to the right of Tikrumpdel's face. The dragon eyed it up and then sniffed.

"Dangle it closer to the surface of the water," he instructed, "If I use my flame on that directly, I'm going to melt it."

Thorian did as he was instructed, stepping out on to Tikrumpdel's floaty of a neck and hanging on to one of his horns so he could lean out further without the threat of falling in.

Tikrumpdel took another couple of breathes and then ducked his head so his mouth was just under the water and he didn't open it fully, keeping the front curve of his 'beak' overlapping his lower jaw, forcing the flame to erupt outside ways. The water boiled in an instance, the kettle riding the scolding bubbles, steaming pouring from its spout after a moment. The steam thickened as it coiled around the Ice Pike, snow and ice drops pattering on the surface of the water.

"Thank you muchly," Thorian swung the kettle back in, "Er any chance that we could have just a spoonful of that honey you have in your hoard."

Tikrumpdel sniffed as he pushed on, working against the current.

"Ark, I only kept it to have something in my hoard so you can have one of the small barrels," he allowed at last, "BUT you owe me something in return. When you find something shiny on your travels you owe it to me, got it?"

"Absolutely," Thorian beamed and nodded swinging back to where Ulrich had already crumbled tea leaves into the pot. Watching them, Estella suddenly held up a finger before scrabbling in her bag to find a smallish, yellow fruit.

"Here," she called getting up and walking over to the tea making crew, "Try this as well." She cut the lemon in half with her talisman carving knife and squeezed it into each of the tea cups.

"There, lemon and honey tea," she smiled as she help hand out the cups, "A good medicine for sore throats."

The young woman watched them all cautiously and started drinking her tea last, her careful grey eyes assessing them but there was a consideration of trust in those eyes as she sipped her teeth and double checked her improvised clothes. She looked around and Estella smiled knowingly, pointing to where she'd spread out the young woman's clothes on Tikrumpdel's back. The cloth was steaming slightly.

"Hum, thank you," the young woman said, her voice low and husky, "I don't know you but thank you."

"Kaelin saved you," Thorian nodded to Kaelin, "The rest of us are just helping out this time."

Kaelin shrugged at the woman's questioning stare, shuffling uncomfortably, aware that she had the feeling that the young woman could see the wolf in her.

"Seemed the right thing to do," she said, looking move at her tea cup, "Especially after I saw..." she indicated her own neck and the young woman lifted a hand to her injury, her face coloring with shame.

"My own family ain't exactly great," Kaelin admitted, "So I don't like leaving others in that mess."

"I'm Thorian," Thorian introduced himself after waiting for Kaelin to say more, filling in when that didn't happen, "That's Estella, a sort of friend of ours. You might meet her other friend later."

The young woman looked at Estella again and patted the air near her head again.

"I felt that," Valodrael rumbled in Estella's mind, causing Estella's eyes to go wide.

"He's Ulrich," Thorian  jabbed a thumb towards Ulrich, who had his nose back in his book again, where he was leaning against Tikrumpdel's right wing.

"I hope you don't think I'm rude, good lady," Ulrich looked up from the page he was studying, "But having had what I think to be a reasonable guess at your recent history, I figured that you would be more comfortable if you were not crowded by a whole group of men."

She looked down and blushed again.

"He's my buddy," Thorian grinned, "We have a competition at the moment and he's a little sour because I am leading."

"I beg your pardon," Ulrich frowned, "You are doing no such thing."

"Am too," Thorian insisted.

"Am not," Ulrich stated levelly.

"Um," Tasnar put a finger on his chin with a sly smile, "The Matriarch's Favorite seems to have a dispute with the orc's child. What say you? Shall we keep count?"

"Our money would have to go on the Matriarch's Favorite," Quenril observed quietly.

"The orc child," Sabal stated.

"Excuse me," Ulrich asked.

"I'm putting my money on the orc child," Sabal repeated, "After all, you are trying to teach us that we need not live our lives in fear and hatred, are you not? There for I put my money on the orc children. Or did you mean that we could live without fear and hatred except for you?"

Ulrich deadpanned him for a long minute and then he laughed.

"Alright," he grinned, "I'll just have to make you lose that money."

"As the Matriarch's Favorite wishes," Sabal smiled back with a smaller, more dignified smile.

 "And he's Jeremiah," Thorian pointed at Jeremiah, "He can be... persuading so be careful around him but his mind don't affect me."

"You can affect something that isn't there," Jeremiah observed over his shoulder, not joining their little group, not even for the tea.

"I'm," the young woman cleared her throat, "I'm Alina."

"Alina?" Thorian asked, "That's a beautiful name but don't talk to much. Who ever did that made a right mess of your throat."

Alina put a hand up to her throat and then looked down, shame stamping its way across her features, her grey eyes going dark.

"It's alright," Thorian said, "I know you're a long way from home and we're strangers but the only way you could have got down here is by the river and we're heading back up that way so sooner or later we'll get you home. Oh and when we get there, if you'd like to point out who did that to you, we'll take care of them." He made a fist and cracked his knuckles.

Alina smiled a little at that, not much but a little.

"Let's just say our friends have a dim view of people who pick on those who can't fight back," Estella smiled and patted Alina's hand.

"To do ought else is to the height of bad form," Ulrich noted, "Not the behavior of a gentleman at all. Uncouth plebians like that deserve to be both disciplined and educated as to the error of their ways."

Alina smiled more at that. 

Draconnic Shenanigans - Episode 37

Chapter Thirty Seven: Eight Legged Shrieks 

 

 (Artwork not mine, all rights go to slothbeing)

 "Ah puphed!" Tikrumpdel yawned, "Ah, what's the point anyway? It's not like I have much of a hoard left to defend any way." He sighed, ruffling their hair with a breath that smelt in equal parts of hot metal and flame grilled meat. "Some days I wonder why I keep trying. Guess the old instincts just won't shut up and go away. All I want is to be left in peace but people keep coming on by to try and poke me in the eye. I don't see why they just can't leave a body well enough be."

He tried to scratch an itch on his back, making his whole body wobble as his back foot tried to reach up and round the continental sized paunch to reach the space between his puny looking wings. Wings that would have shaded acres on a sleeker dragon looked like they didn't belong to Tikrumpdel, move like they had been graphed on as an after thought. He grunted in irritation, fighting his own love of a buffet to reach the annoying twitch. With a grumbled he rolled sideways, the cavern groaning with the shift of weigh and started rubbing his back on what was left of the block house on the left hand side of the King's Special's view. Ulrich and Quenril backed up as the walls cracked and crumbled as Tikrumpdel rippled his bulk back and forth, the battered remains of the building crashing and tumbling to the ground, some of it sliding off the cliff to splash in the river below. The ground shuddered as Tikrumpdel rolled back to the upright position so he could look down on them and see them the right way up.

Kaelin staggered and tripped, biting her lip as her knee cap smacked into the floor. She wasn't sure it whether it was broken or not. She fought the urge to swear as the floor stopped its bucking and shuddering.

"Well as I said before, Great One," Ulrich bowed to the ancient red dragon, "We had no idea that you had claimed this land or that your hoard was located here. I merely checked the entrance to your home to determine whether its residence was someone we should be worried about and having determined that you were a mighty personage, I was going to suggest to my companions that we should not disturb your rest and move on a quietly as possible. It was the personage of the Bat Clan up there who disturbed your rest and it occurs to me that if you ate him then you won't be bothered again."

 Tikrumpdel turned an eye up the cliff edge. The Bat Clan member froze where they were trying to unobtrusively scramble backwards, having been knocked off their feet much the same way that Kaelin had been.

"We were just passing through," said shape changer called from where she was standing up, bowed over to rub at her wounded knee, "It was that git up there that started shouting."

"Why are you all the way back there?" Tikrumpdel frowned at her but then looked up at the Bat Clan Elf who had scuttled back a little further. He froze again.

"The real question is can I be bothered to climb up there?" he yawned again and stretched, spreading out as he came. The whole of the King's Special and their allies backed up at that. Tikrumpdel might have been too heavy to fly and was certainly out of shape but his claws where still bigger than Thorian. Spread out he could have seized four of them in a grab with those claws.

"Well," Ulrich swallowed as Tikrumpdel relaxed, "Well, it occurs to me, why bother climbing up there when you can incinerate him from here?"

The chorus of running feet echoed around the cavern as the Bat Clan Elf gave up all semblance of caution and bolted for the unseen exit of the higher cave, his panicked whimpering whispering to them as he fled.

"He seems to be in a hurry," Thorian observed, "Wonder if he left the kettle on."

The Bat Clan Elf wasn't the only one, it was just that Kaelin was a lot quieter about it. Ulrich was bloody well insane. You don't try to control a dragon that size, to them small people were just insects, small, buzzing, irritating and invoking about much the same amount of feeling when they burnt up in a flame. Oh sorry, that's too bad, still what's the fuss?

"Gah," Tikrumpdel rumbled up at the cliff edge, "Pests! Tics! Vermin! Lice! Parasites!"

He burped a breath of hot air that made the steams of the cavern roll and billow, the edge of the cliff wavering in the blast of heat. Still grumbling in his throat he shuffled back around to look at that King's Special, grinding his belly against the rumble pile, rock groaning and squeaking as it was crushed together with pellets of compressed armor.

"That's what you get for having a reputation as the richest, most powerful dragon to ever fly," he sighed, "Everyone believes it, even when they should know its no longer true. I would just like to be left alone. I just want to hibernate, you know, sleep at least some of this off." He smacked himself on the chest, making ripples the size of ocean waves travel across his flesh. He flopped his chins on to the ground, the impact of it bouncing the King's Special and their allies off the ground, making them stagger and fight to keep their footing. Tikrumpdel didn't notice, sighing up from the depth of his being, a great shuddering ripple that made his whole body droop, piggy little eyes watering dolefully as he sniffed, his puny wings hanging limp over his sides like the sails of a ship with a broken mast.

Ulrich stepped carefully to one side and sat down on a chunk of rock, hooking one leg over the other, his foot dangling in midair.

"It seems to me that you really rather need a listening ear old boy," he smiled indulgently up at the huge dragon, "And seeing as I have two ears available, I'm free to listen."

Tikrumpdel shifted his head to glare at Ulrich.

"Do you take me for a fool?" he rumbled, little eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Only an idiot would do so," Ulrich reassured but his silver tongue seemed to have tarnished. With a rattle of shifting stones, Tikrumpdel's head lifted, the heat rolling of his hide increasing as the glow of the well banked fire in his nostrils flared up.

"You really think you can string me along?" he rumbled, the thunder of an avalanche rolling through his voice, "Like a little creature like you has the time to listen to my tail. I have lived since before the time of your grandfather's grandfather! I have seen kingdom's start in the mud and crumble into dust! I have seen generations of elves and dwarfs come and go and you think that you, the smallest of the smallest people has enough heart beats to hear one tenth of my tail?"

"I was merely trying to be companionable," Ulrich began, uncrossing his leg, "I meant no disrespect for your vast..."

That was probably the wrong word to use, Ulrich conceded that point later.

Tikrumpdel's fist crashed into ground with the force of a falling anvil, bouncing the rock and therefore Ulrich, into the air. Ulrich smashed down on his butt and had to manage a very undignified roll to avoid the crushing weight of the rock slamming back down. Quenril scrabbled forward and heaved him to his feet, pulling him away, eyes wide as he watched for the dragon's next move.

Tikrumpdel snorted and then sniggered as Ulrich spat dust and tried to wipe grim from his face as Quenril continued to pull him backwards. He sniggered and then chuckled, his jowls shaking his glee.

"Oh I'd forgotten how careless you small things were, even when you think you are being careful," he sniggered again, "I haven't talked with small creatures for..." He trailed off looking off to the right, staring at the swirling mists for a moment, frowning. He hummed and hawed in his throat for a moment and finally snorted a small puff of flame in annoyance.

"What year is it?" he demanded, slapping his meaty tail on the ground. A wall of the much abused block house cracked. It groaned and shifted for a moment and then gave up the fight, surrendering to time, gravity and much draconnic abuse. With a stony grumble it collapsed and rained down in fist sized lumps that bounced off of Tikrumpdel's hunch with less effect than a rain of hail stones on a rubble sheet. Tikrumpdel peered over the rolls of one shoulder.

"I've been meaning to fix that," he grunted.

"It is the year twenty one fifty seven of the Fourth Era," Ulrich answered the question, straightening up and frowning at Quenril until his Ash Elf body guard finally let his arm go.

"Three hundred years," Tikrumpdel settled back, "Now that's what I call a nap." He yawned and stretched again, making the rumble pile wheeze and pop with his shifting weight. "Still, would have slept better if those ruddy adventures would stop trying to steal my stuff. Do you have any idea how fattening adventures are?"

"I would guess that they are extremely fattening," Ulrich stared up at the scaly mound that was Tikrumpdel's girth, "And that kind of makes sense, seeing as it not only the adventures themselves but also all their supplies."

"Not to mention their beasts," Tikrumpdel grumble, "I am so fed up of the taste of spider. It was a novelty to beginning with but now it is just boring and those lizard things are just as bad. What I wouldn't give for a nice roast horse. Or a mountain thunderer. Not that I could catch one but oh my word, it has been so long since I tasted mountain thunderer."

"You like them too," Thorian broke into a huge grin.

"Who doesn't?" Tikrumpdel grinned back, "Mountain Thunderer roasted until its juices bubble and the crust just starts to form." He made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat.

"Or snow pigs," Thorian beamed, "Snow pigs are good to."

"Snow pigs?" Tikrumpdel asked, swinging his head sideways to peer out of one eye at Thorian, "Don't think I know them."

"Above this size," Thorian held his hands apart, "Short little legs, round bodies like great big meat potatoes but they can be right quick. Long shaggy hair that makes pretty good rope when its braided and they squeak a lot like this 'week, week, week'."

"Do they taste good?" Tikrumpdel sniffed with interest.

"Like rabbit but not as strong," Thorian nodded, "Pretty good when stuffed with apples."

Tikrumpdel made a noise of interest. It appeared that despite his protests of wanting to sleep off some of the years of gluttony, he was still very much ruled by his stomach. 

"It's tempting," he rumbled, "Very tempting. Only problem is deciding whether or not I would have even more bother with the adventurers up in the surface world than I have down here in the dark. That and that bunch of young upstarts. Would they leave a body alone if I decide to see the sun again?" He ground his belly on the rock fall again, making it squeak and grind with the sound of mill stones. "I miss the sun..."

"So who are these young upstarts?" Jeremiah asked as innocently as could be, his wings flicking. There were possibilities here, he could smell them. As fat and lazy Tikrumpdel had proven to be, if he could be goaded into finally shaking off the centuries of inaction then it could be come a war with this consortium of other dragons. A war of dragons? Such a thing had not truly been seen since the days of the God war and that had been... what? Roughly eleven thousand years ago? A resurgence of such an ancient conflict would certainly humble some of the current rulers of the world and open up new opportunities in the chaos that would follow such an event. After all, when the world goes to complete and utter smash around people, they cry out for answers and who better to sooth their fears than the One True God?

Jeremiah tried to hide his frown as he looked at Tikrumpdel. It was hard to imagine him being able to combat one young, health and above all fit opposing dragon, let a alone a whole group of them. But there again, his weight could play to the defense. There was so much of him that if they could trap the opponents on the ground, disable their wings somehow, then Tikrumpdel's weigh could become the deciding factor as he would be more used to ground based movement and his sheer mass would help protect his vital organs from blows and piercing teeth. Jeremiah doubted that there were many dragons who would be able to get their gape open wide enough to seize Tikrumpdel's throat in a choke hold and if they tried then all Tikrumpdel would have to do was roll and that would be the end of the story for the other dragon. But how to convince him to put out the effort? Cajoling probably wouldn't work after Tikrumpdel had measured up Ulrich's attempt and ordering would just get Jeremiah reduced to a mouthful. If dragons had gods then it was unknown and they probably didn't. Only little people needed someone to pray to so trying to convert him to the worship of the One True God was probably a nonstarter.

"Well," Ulrich rubbed his chin like his was thinking out loud, "Our King is pretty open to immigration as long as they work to prove that they are going to be valuable members of society. After all, we did  have an Ash Elf in the position of a provincial governor long before anyone else would consider every trusting anyone of their race, so if you were to say, help out with, I don't know... Maybe that monster that is in the great lake, I think the King might be willing to help out with any dragon that comes nosing around trying to cause you trouble. Maybe."

"Your King?" Tikrumpdel sniffed, swinging his head to look at Ulrich out of the out eye, "Who's your king?"

"King Tatsuya, the twelfth of his line," Ulrich reported, "He son, Prince Relian, has been well trained to take the throne after his father and continue the legacy of common sense and frugal use of resources."

He did his best to project pride in his country and Kings. He wasn't sure what was going on behind the dragon's eyes but if there was some thought as to judging Ulrich's home country then by gollies Ulrich was going to do his best to make it sound like he had the best country in the world and he did admit that a unbroken line of King's stretching back twelve generation was no mean feat.

"You look capable enough," Tikrumpdel rumbled, "How long have you been down here?"

"Phew, now you're asking," Ulrich puffed out his cheeks and then let them down again, "Um." He rubbed his chin again, seriously thinking this time.

"What do you think chaps?" he turned to the others, "How long do you think we have been down here?"

"Well there were the two weeks in the realm of the dwergs," Jeremiah noted, "And we have had two, no three sleeps since then. There was also the time we spent at the Snake Clan hold and then there was..."

"Three tens," Thorian stated, "Must be three tens at least."

"I'd agreed with that," Estella nodded her agreement, speaking up for the first time.

"Other than that the answer really could be the same as the one for how long is a ball of string?" Ulrich admitted, "I have to admit I haven't been keeping track that well. Been a little too busy convincing the local wildlife that we are not a dinner option."

 Tikrumpdel actually seemed impressed with that answer but seeing as his sleep seemed to have been disturbed by the local wildlife an awful lot so he probably understood how persistent the creatures of the Underworld could be.

"Do you know some where on the surface that could be safe for my hoard?" Tikrumpdel rumbled, the vibrations of it trembling through the bedrock beneath their feet as he slid further down the rubble slope to the point at least part of his chest was resting on the solid stone, "Somewhere that I can turn my back on it for more than five minutes and not have some annoying pesky little flea tampering with it."

"As matter of fact we do, old boy!" Ulrich exclaimed, an inspiration particular smacking him between the eyes full force, "We happen to know a gentleman who has an extremely well protected fastness on the surface world. He was forming the front line of defense when we left to come down here and discover what all the fuss was about. It is built out of stone and magic and set in a swamp that other people don't tend to come to that often. He defeated a powerful wizard to claim it so he's no slouch himself and his... people are loyal and powerful in their own right."

Tikrumpdel frowned, considering the pause in Ulrich's words.

Kaelin decided that was her cue to exit. She'd taken shelter in the shadows near the bridge, waiting for the moment when Tikrumpdel would be fully focus on the others before she tried to cross that open span and now she dashed out, ready for the sprint.

She stumbled to a halt, eyes wide and mouth dry as the legs and furry, low slung bodies bustled out of the shadows on either side of the bridge, eyes, so many eyes, blinking as they sized her up, paps fidgeting.

Jeremiah turned his head, narrowing his eyes at the dark. There was definitely something in the shadows but he wasn't sure what. He lifted a hand and started muttering the words to a prayer, threads of power curling around his fingers, wings shifting uneasily.

"Oh," Thorian muttered, stepping towards the wall below the mouth of the high cave, hand going back over his shoulder to grasp the hilt of his sword, "Oh that's not good." 

Ulrich looked up, following the direction of Thorian's gaze. His elven swords whispered from their scabbards.

"People," he snapped, "We have company and it is not the sort you want round for dinner."

The Ash Elves lining the edge of the group, grinned back, their teeth pearly white in the dark, their faces unsettlingly similar to those of skulls, their savagely reshaped noses ghoulish with their gaping nostrils.

Out on her own, Kaelin looked from side to side. Two on the right, two on the left and they were bigger than the small ones they had fought up on the surface. Those had been the size of Alsatians, these were the size of miniature horses, which only sounded pathetic until you were the one stood there trying to stare down their multiple eyes and clicking fangs.

"Spiders," she muttered, "Why does it always have to be spiders?"

With a grunt she let the wolf out of its cage. Her bones bubbled and stretched, pain lancing through her muscles as they reconfigure to take the extra long jaws, her claws forcing their way out of the tips of her fingers, pushing her fingernails out of the way. Her shoulders surged, taking on more mass, as the fur colonized her skin. She growled at her foes as her eyes finished turning tawny.

Ulrich whistled and Peter responded, flowing to his master's side and Ulrich swung on to him without breaking stride.

"Weatherall to me!" He commanded. Weatherall thought about, thought about running but then Sabal scrambled on to his shell, lacking some of the grace usual for an elf but seeing as the bandages loaded with for healing potion still restricted his motion that was to be forgiven. Weatherall wiggled his eye stalks at the blade held in Sabal's hand and thought better of it, scuttling into position to his master's left. Marmaduke bonged like a dropped soup kettle as he stepped up to Ulrich's right, Thorian stepping with him to anchor the right flank.

Jeremiah frowned, distracted for a second by his companions odd behavior. Anyone would think that they were about to launch into battle and with something other than that over bloated corpse of a dragon. There was something much more interesting over in the shadows and...

"Let's... have... some..." Thorian riled himself up, "WAAAAAARRRRRRR! WAAAAAAARRRRRR!"

The Bat Clans grinning smiles faltered as Thorian's battle cry echoed and re-echoed through the cavern, sounding like an entire tribe of orc crossbreeds were about to boil out of the stone work at them, screaming and waving their over sized chopping swords at them.

The last of the block house gave up the fight with a snap and crumbled into dust, adding the thunder of its collapse to Thorian's battle cry.

"Oh for night's sake," a clear voice rang out as an Ash Elf noblewoman, her cut nose revealing that she two was Bat Clan, pushing her way between the ranks of the massed elves, "We're not here to gather humans people."

Tikrumpdel growled, recognizing trouble when he saw it, making the cavern tremble as he shuffled his massive girth round to face the cliff, chin angled up so he could see the clan members, tickles of flame beginning to form around his teeth.

The Bat Clan Noble lifted her hand and barked a string of words that made the skin crawl. Thick white webbing whipped out of the air and wound themselves tight around Tikrumpdel's muzzle, cracking his teeth together. He let loose a muffled yelled and sent rubble cascading off of the lower cliff edge as he backed away, swinging his head from side to side, pawing at the sticky stuff smoothing his face.

"Eyeeeeee," Tasnar let out a long scream of fear, "Disgraced! Disgraced and defiled! Eyeeee!"

The Ash Elf false widow spider centaur thing turned her head to glare at him, lips parting to reveal mobile pap like fangs, face mark with the scarification tattoo of the Spider Clan, revealing her original clan affiliation despite despite her reshaped nose.

Her sister abomination, a Ash Elf lace web spider centaur, anchoring the flank closer to Tikrumpdel was more concentrated on her work, a rope of silk lashing out and entangling one of Tikrumpdel's forefoot, preventing him from clawing at the webbing on his face. He vented a muffled roar. She bared sharpened teeth, displaying her Rat Clan origins.

The Ash Elves tossed reels of rope of the cliff edge and were coming down the lines before they had finished unspooling, some firing as they came, spiders the size of small ponies swarming down the cliff as well towards Tikrumpdel as well. A bolt thudded into Thorian's armor but bounced of the dragon hide layers. Thorian took a step back from the impact but then stepped forwards, the red beginning to build in his gaze.

Ulrich didn't duck by effort of will as a bolt parted his hair with the wind of its passage.

"For Portasia!" he roared, leveling a sword at the descending foes.

Estella spread her feet wide, half crouching in the horse straddle stance, her extended fore and middle fingers describing two circles, one clockwise and one counter clock, the talismans echoing her gestures in a horizontal figure of eight behind her head, the sparks of power flowing in their wake. The circles where draw and drawn again thickening their outline and then Estella chopped both hands down, flat palmed and the power rippled as it was unleashed. Bat Clan members still on the line juddered to a halt, eyes wide, twisting and turning as they shouted about something in the air, something they feared. The ones already on the ground turned, hand bows tracking something in the air above the head's of the King's Special and their allies, voices not quite on the verge of panic.

The Noble turned her head, face twisting with anger as she glared down at Estella, rage coloring her skin, furious that this pretty little girl could have thrown her people in to confusion with nothing more than a light show.

Estella smiled back up at her, then lifted the first and middle finger of her left hand to her lips to kiss the knuckles and then tip them in salute to the Ash Elf Noble.

The Noble's lip twisted and she opened her mouth to scream a curse.

Still smiling, Estella leaned over and opened her mouth, stream of thick, black oil jetting from her in one huge flood that looked like it should turn her inside out. It didn't, the ropes of it spiraling together, wrapping into columns that smoothed out to form the muscular black limbs of a dragon speckled with the explosions of solar systems.

Valodrael grinned up at the Noble and the growl that rumbled in his throat made more than one Ash Elf cringe, terror over riding the fear of their leader. Said leader herself took a step back, the curse dying on her lips before it could be spoken.

The distraction was to cost some more than others. Sabal had experienced what could only be called a bad day. He'd been dragged on a wild goose chase, he'd nearly fallen in lava, been crushed by a size changing dragon and had nearly cracked his head open falling into a hidden sink hole. He had been having a bad day and among the Ash Elves the acceptable response to having a bad day was finding someone else to have an even worse day.

Weatherall waggled his eye stalks as Sabal goaded him into a charge. Sabal was shrieking like a banshee as he lashed out.

A Bat Clan Elf span away, his face split. Another fell shrieking, clutching the stump of his arm. A third had an expression of surprise cross his face as his arms fell limp, Sabal's sword having crashed through his eye socket. The broken unit of Bat Clan Ash Elves fell back in two separate squads, their cohesion broken.

Kaelin, alone, unable to turn and see what was going on behind her, bunched herself and leaped at the spiders to her left as they were the ones closest to her. Her raking claws missed the hit, these spiders apparently more than ready to dodge and duck to avoid her attack. Kaelin landed and slide, turning slightly to try and keep them in her sights, fur bristling as she growled.

"Parp!" Haggis agreed, his grey furred wind bag shaking.

Quenril leveled his hand bow, sighted down the arrow and breathed out before his finger tightened on the trigger. The bolt whistled passed Ulrich's ear, threading the space between him and Sabal to shatter on the wall beside a Bat Clam member, making him flinch. Quenril breathed a prayer of thanks, his stomach still noted with the fear he'd shoot Ulrich in the back.

Jeremiah frowned at the two swarms of Ash Elves as they began shake free of Estella's influence. They kept being interrupted by these inconsiderate wretches who obviously had no idea that they should bow before their betters. That being the case, he supposed that he, Jeremiah, would have to deal with the issue. If he left it up to the rest of the King's Special they would still be here in a month's time.

He closed his eyes and pressed his hands together in prayer, lips moving as he offered up his worship of praise to the great god Klu'ga-nath.

Nanny Tatters' bones creaked and groaned as she swelled and expanded. Jeremiah frowned, wondering how he had displeased his god as she was not the impressive size that she should have been. He had envisioned her being the lithe, agile version of Tikrumpdel's size to shame the old beast into compliance. Instead she was the size of a Clydesdale horse, the most common size that Valodrael used. Jeremiah thinned his mouth, not impressed. Still trying to come up with suitable words of thanks for what he'd gotten, he stepped back, waving his remaining Ash Elf puppet forward, the vigor beside it to form a meat shield between him and the Bat Clan.

Valodrael glanced at Nanny Tatters' expanded form, looked at Jeremiah's unimpressed face and suppressed a smirk. It was obvious that the priest hadn't received what he wanted. Maybe that would teach him to worship a guileful god. A bolt thudded into Valodrael's neck. He swung his head to look, a long flat stare, at the southern troop of Ash Elves. The shooter swallowed.

Valodrael reached up and plucked the bolt from his oily substance. It came out with a greasy sucking sound. He looked at it, pinched between two claws and then looked at the shooter. The shooters face fell as they felt the full weight of having done something really rather stupid.

Valodrael's inhale rattled like hail over ice in a storm thrashing a great northern lake to cold rage.

The shooter drew breath to scream but never made it that far as the Chill of the Void scoured across the ground, rocks shattering under its freezing touch, the shooter and those both to the sides and behind him locking into place as icicles of red and black ruptured from their flesh, skin blackening as capillaries ruptured below the surface, their last screams frozen in time forever, or at least until they defrosted later.

 The survivors fell away to either side of the frozen statues, crying out in horror as one wavered and then toppled, snapping off at the ankles and smashing to pieces on the floor, the shards of froze tissue ringing like water ice across the stones. Valodrael grinned and then flicked the bolt that had hit him with two talons. The frozen statue that had been the shooter cracked as the bolt sheered through its solid neck and its head plunged to the floor to burst into slivers and chunks.

Someone screamed but the pain wasn't done yet, their distraction having given Tasnar time to line up the perfect shot. The bolt whistle. The rappel lines parted with whip cracks. The Bat Clan members toppled in slow motion in mid-air, mouths opening in startled O's of horror and then gravity speeded up and they dropped. One managed a high scream of horror as they plummeted and then they met the ground with stomach turning cracks as their skulls shattered and their brains mushed against the stones.

The Bat Clan southern unit had been cut in two and one of its squads reduced to individuals who backed towards to the cliff, looking for a rappel line that was still complete enough to get them out of their. They had come to subdue an old, fat, lazy dragon and raid his horde. Now they had suddenly had three dragons facing them and two of them were not old, not fat and certainly not lazy. This was decidedly above their pay grade.

"For the King! For Portasia! For Freedom! Charge!" Ulrich brandished his fae gifted, elf made sword and set his heels to Peter's flanks. Whistling like one of the dwerg's locomotives, Peter rippled forward, mouth parts sheering open and closed. They crashed into the second squad of the now broken northern unit. Ulrich was laughing as his swords whipped and sliced through the air. The hiss of cut air and the ring of steel on steel. Every year of training and schooling working in one seamless whole as he clashed with the skill of the Bat Clan Elves, the hours he had spent learning from Quenril and his kin coming together, fencing the Bat Clan Member directly in front of him in a cage of hissing steel.

The Bat Clan Elf went from snarling to grimacing with the effort of keeping up with Ulrich's blows to sweating. He took a step back. Peter punished that mistake with insect wrath, his mandibles sheering through the elf's leg at the thigh. He sheered again, severing the arm at the elbow. He sheered again, cutting off the Elf's scream of pain even as the red splashed, snipping the head off the falling body like a butcher preparing a chicken.

Jeremiah sniffed. It had to be a sign of his companions lack of quality that they had to spend so much unnecessary effort to try and impress their audience when there were much more efficient methods of dealing with the problem at hand.

"Deal with that lot there," he commanded Nanny Tatters, gesturing to the unmolested squad that had come to be when the northern unit broke down. It was best to have a clean canvas when one was doing a demonstration for the benefit of others.

Nanny Tatters opened her wings and flapped them. Jeremiah raised an eyebrow as she revealed that she actually now had the beginnings of webbing between the bony span of her wing fingers. She lunged forward, jumped and managed to chicken flutter over the messy knot of combatants in the way. She stumbled with the landing and then steadied, her half length tail flicking behind her.

Tikrumpdel thrashed and tugged against his bounds, his territory suddenly invaded by not one but two dragons. Nanny Tatters didn't even glance at him with her one eye. She blinked her side ways eyelids instead at the squad of Bat Clan Elves that her Master had indicated. She opened her mouth and... coughed.

The Bat Clan Elves flinched and then grinned, hefting their swords back to the ready.

Nanny Tatters inhaled, the noise of a ghost ship creaking in the night, a desiccating wind filling her sails and the Bat Clan Elves screamed, screams that went hoarse and croaky and reedy. The outliers of the unit dived out of the stream, one of them clutching his face after landing, the flesh sagging and liver spotted. The others struggled trying to escape as well but their knees gave way as their muscles went thin, their knees swelling with the joint ail. Hair dropped out in handfuls as skin creased and wrinkled, teeth cracking or falling out entirely.

The skeletons fell, hands held out in supplication to the ravages of time itself, shattering on the stones, the dust of their flesh billowing in the wind.

Nanny Tatters licked her chops and the hiccuped slightly. She blinked, her now full length tail twitching behind her, dragging its length over the rock. The claws of one hand tapped against the floor, the inner workings of tendon and bone no longer on show, her once transparent hide having darkened to a pale, muddy brown. She still did not have scales but she no longer looked like an walking anatomy lesson.

Jeremiah smiled at how well the lesson had been demonstrated, not questioning Nanny Tatters'... recovery.

Kaelin swiveled an ear in that direction, recognizing the sound of Nanny Tatters' terrifying breath weapon but she didn't have tie to look. She could only hope that Jeremiah hadn't decided that this was the moment he was going to betray the King's Special and turn them all into food for his horror show of a dragon. The damn thing was healing itself. She was damn  sure of it but she didn't have time!

She dodged the first scuttling lunge, dodged the second, kicked out at that one and...

She screamed as the fangs of one of the ones from the other side of the bridge, the ones she hadn't managed to keep an eye on for five bloody seconds, puncture the small of her back. She screamed again, knees threatening to buckle, boiling hot and freezing cold flushes racing through her nervous system, sweat plastering her fur to her skin. She fought the need to heave as she twisted hard enough to rip the fangs out of her flesh, the breath burning in her lungs. She turned as the group of four spiders closed in around her and in a flash of inspiration stopped fighting her roiling stomach. The spiders backed up as the projectile vomit splashed across the stones, some of them shaking fastidiously as droplets of stinking gunk splattered their bristles.

Kaelin gasped, her mouth rank and her vision blurring, shaking as she stayed standing.

Marmaduke clanged as he lunged forward, his round feet punching the stone as he stood beside his master. His bronze sword whizzed through the air and... The Bat Clan Elf ducked, grinning as he came up, long steel sword ready to sheer Marmaduke's blade into. His last standing squad mate blinked as he smacked into the cliff face hard enough to shatter bone and leave him dropping to the floor as limp as a rag doll. Marmaduke buzzed quietly with satisfaction. He might not have been the best swordsman that had ever been forged in bronze but he could shield bash with his buckler like a god's thunder bolt.

Tikrumpdel wriggled, flexing against the bound that held him. The two spider centaur things paced down the wall of the cliff towards him, a cluster of spiders tapping in their wake, their flat, clustered eyes fixed on the writhing old king of the skies. His nostrils flared, once, twice, as he sucked in air. He bunched and surged, proving that unlike a crocodile his jaw opening muscles were just as strong. Silk ripped with a fluid tearing noise and Tikrumpdel reared back, the fire flaring at the back of his throat.

The roar was volcanic in its power, heat rippling across the stones making as many of them pop in miniature explosions as Valodrael's breath of the Void had done. The cliff face glowed as rappel line fizzed as they sparked and smoked into ash.

The False Widow Ash Elf spider centaur tried to scream but all that came out was a weird clicking as she stumbled and span, arms held out before her, hair scorched off, skin cracked, the bloated bulk of her spider body split and leaking. She was whimpering as she gasped.

Kaelin wished she could turn and see. She wished she could cry out for help. She wished that she could swallow, her tongue thick and dry in her mouth. She sank to her knees, trying to focus on the spiders in front of her. They seemed to be wavered as if she was seeing them through a sheet of water. One of them reared, paps ready to strike. One of the others bullied into it, pushing it off balance while the other two were swaying back and forth, front legs held up and out, sizing up against each other. In short they were squabbling over who got to eat her first. Of all the ways she thought she would die, being squabbled over by a pack of eight legged shrieks had not ever been on her list. Her stomach heaved again and she wretched, a thin stream of yellow acid coming up but there was nothing else in there to shift. Her feathery wings drooped to the floor, feathers drenched with sweat.

Tikrumpdel roared, thrashing, rubble launched into the cavern to crash against walls and tumble down into the river below, flung by his smashing tail. The four spiders that scuttled around the feet of the spider centaurs strained against the webbing lines they had flung, trying to hold down his limbs. One was flung into the air, whipping on the end of the line, squalling as it snapped back and forth on the end of its own rope.

The burned black spider centaur thing turned her head to the noise and proved that, heavily injured as she was, she was still capable of fighting, a rope of silk lashing out to wrapping around his left foreleg and pin it to the ground. The cavern shuddered.

Fire licked round Tikrumpdel's fangs but the lace web spider centaur lashed out with a whip of silk and muzzled him. His roar, muffled as it was shook the air and caused rock slides in the distance. He reared and body slammed the floor, shaking the cavern. He reared and slammed again, heaving his bulk in the manner of a seal, rock cracking and tumbling beneath his bulk. Spiders and spider centaurs strained to restrain him.

Ulrich nodded with satisfaction over Marmaduke's shield bashing success. Leaving him to mop up the last survivor of that group, Ulrich turned to the squad that was blocking his plan to charge to Tikrumpdel's aid. Peter reared and shrilled, legs raking the air, rippling in an almost fluid pattern. They crashed into the squad of Bat Clan Elves, Peter's mandibles scissoring, Ulrich's blades flashing. These ones however proved to be much faster, holding them at bay, skull like faces snarling, savagely reshaped noses gaping in the shadows, appearing like holes in their faces, making the skin crawl with the sight of them.

Jeremiah hooded his eyes with a bored expression. Really this whole thing was a waste of time and if his companions weren't so lazy it would be over and done by now. He sighed. Once again he would have to do something spectacular and that was always such a trail, having to use the glory of Klu'ga-nath for such a paltry matter. He was blessed that his god didn't take it as an insult to his glory but seeing as it did offer up a spectacular sacrifice unto him, Jeremiah supposed that why his god was prepared to stretch the point.

He readied his wings and leapt into the air. The Bat Clan noble stepped back again, confusion marring her face. Oh really, did she think that these wings were solely for decoration? Jeremiah shook his head sadly at her ignorance. He considered revealing unto her the full blessing of his god but that would have only been one life held up in sacrifice whereas there were more numerous offerings available. Jeremiah swooped, pleased with how soon he had mastered his wings. He opened his mouth but it was not a prayer that erupted into the air.

Ulrich flinched and nearly closed his eyes, only holding them open by the necessity of not receiving a sword to the rib cage. It was there again, dear gods, it was there again, the dragon of shadow and diseased light that coiled in the pattern of Jeremiah's breath weapon. He clenched his teeth to hold his lunch were it should stay.

The false widow spider centaur didn't make a sound as the light engulfed her, leaving behind a perfect copy of her burnt form carved in salt, every split and crack in her charred form depicted, even the shriveled stubs of her eyes in their scorched sockets.

The spiders didn't fair much better, a couple flinching back, one rearing up before the light engulfed them, leaving them carved from salt in every perfect detail, every hair in place but without color, carved in beautiful white. There was nothing in this world that said perfection quite like pure white salt and the glory of details that it preserved.

The lace web spider centaur managed to scream as she half turned to stare at the fate engulfing her companions a heartbeat before it swallowed her. Her last scream was so perfect in its horror, the crystals of salt fixing the details in place, giving one time to study it minutia of despair before subtle shifts in the air currents began to erode the beauty of her frozen face. A couple of salt crystals moved and then a heartbeat later, a leg cracked and ground, crystals shifting to the floor, the salt unable to hold up the weight of the bulk above it.

Tikrumpdel shuffled backwards, tugging the last surviving spider with him, his tail flopping over the edge of the cliff above the river, rubble splashing down into the flowing water his back claws scratching at the edge.

 "Let's. Have. Some. WAAAAAARRRRRRR!" Thorian roared and charged the squad of the southern unit that was left. His bull rush scattered them, the elves leaping or twisting out of the way, swords forgotten in the face of just trying to not be the one trampled beneath those thundering feet. The Bat Clan elves were definitely rethinking their life choices at this moment in time and were caught between their newly blossoming fear of the King's Special and the punishment that they would suffer at the hands of their Matriarch for failing their mission.

One of them suddenly screamed, yanked into the air. Valodrael shook him, snapped him back and forth like a terrier with a rat, trying to flick him high enough that Valodrael would be able to have him half way down his throat before the Bat Clan Elf could scream. The elf screamed again and taking a risk inspired only by sheer desperation, used the edge of his sword to cut through his cloak, risking cutting his own throat as he tumbled to the floor.

Kaelin dragged a deep breath that choked her lungs like liquid and threw herself at the nearest spider. Her fangs clacked together without connecting but her hands grabbed.

It shrilled, hissing at her, paps waving in her face as she lifted it into the air. She smashed it down on the floor, hefting it and smashing again then yanking left and right, smashing and bashing until it came apart and splattered its companions with yellow fluid. She was shaking and gasping but she was back on her feet.

Jeremiah turned and hovered, pleased with himself. The wall of sound nearly knocked him out of the air. He clutched his ears, his head ringing like a struck bell. He managed to regain control in the air and looked around.

The half a dozen vigor snarled and glared up at him, their huge bat ears flapping in the breeze, their upturned noses an echo of the Bat Clan's savagely reshaped noses. There was no mistaking that the little purple goblins were the creations of these degenerate people. 

Quenril lunged into the gap that Peter's charge had opened and defected the blow aimed at Ulrich's back. Sword to sword, face to face, he and the Bat Clan member snarled at each other, generations of hate and conditioning boiling to the surface.

Marmaduke swung at the other Ash Elf that was left of the second squad of the northern unit and his bronze sword missed, hissing through the air. His buckler did not.

The Bat Clan Elf went up, punted into the air by the colossal blow and what went up had to come down. The crunch echoed round the cavern and then Bat Clan Elf laid still.

Estella took a deep breath, arms tracing the circles in the air but for the first time the fizzing trails of power refuse to linger in the air. The Talismans chirruped and twittered, their flights scattered irregular. Estella frown, trying to find the flow of power but it just wasn't coming. One of the last Bat Clan elves of the squad that had been the first of the southern unit to be mauled grinned as his spotted a target for his vengeance. If he could do nothing else, he could make this little girl wish that she had stayed in her hovel and not interfered with the affairs of her betters.

Estella lifted one of the small axes that Myslynn had given her from her belt and threw it, flipping end over end at at him. He twisted to one side, grinning. This was going to be fun.

The squad that Thorian had charged, closed ranks around him, battering at him. If he had been catch like that in the early days of their travels then he would have gone under within moments but now? Now he wore armor made of dragon hide and tooled by dwergs, re-enforced by the runes of Kronzyn and the Bat Clan Elves found their blows turned aside by it, the force of their own blows jarring up their arms as their blades came to dead stops.

The tatters of the other units tried to pick off their foes, bolts whistling passed Jeremiah as he hovered, Quenril ducking as another pierced the air by his ear. Nanny Tatters blinked her side ways eyes as a bolt skittered off the stones between her feet. Even the unit that Ulrich fought couldn't seem to get the range on him, maybe afraid of missing as Peter bucked and  curved and rippled, Ulrich somehow riding the motion and cutting out with slashing blows that kept them at bay.

The Bat Clan Noble scowled. Everything, everything she had worked for was coming apart at the seams and she hated it! These pathetic, worthless, valueless surface animals were destroying her life's work with their selfish savagery. If they were proper people they would have bowed down and licked the stones, begging her forgiveness for defiling the world with their useless existences. If they were proper people they would have known the only decent thing they could ever do was gut the squealing pigs who were referred to as mothers for squeezing their filth into the world and then fall upon the same knives and even then they would not have made recompense for merely existing.

She lifted a hand and screamed the words of the spell, the webs of spider silk lashing through the air, trying to entangle Jeremiah and break his wings, smash him to the ground and shatter him.

Jeremiah ducked and twisted in the air, flicking through the mass of silk ropes that tried to snare him.

"Now my dear," he said, "Did you really think that you could do that to someone like me? Your are nothing but a petulant child next to a servant of the One True God." He ducked as another slashing web whipped towards him. "You are nothing, you a non-entity. You have no worth at all, save sacrificing your life, your soul and your very existence to the great glory that is Klu'ga-nath!"

She screamed and she wasn't the only one, the blackness closing in on all of them, even dimming the light of Tikrumpdel's flames. It shuddered with a power that crawled over the skin, stilled the breath in the lungs and only released them slowly. 

"I wish he would stop saying that name!" Quenril exclaimed.

Weatherall snipped and grabbed at the squad of Bat Clan elves trying to surround Ulrich and Peter. He didn't manage to seize any of them but he did manage to break up their ranks as they ducked and scrambled to get out of his way.

Nanny Tatters turned her head to stare at Ulrich's progress and the fact that it wasn't exactly impressive. She blinked her single sideways eye and then padded forward. Peter lurched sideways as Nanny Tatters' head suddenly appeared beside him. Ulrich decided that he was glad that Nanny Tatters' head was there when she opened her mouth and the chilling, dry rattle of a breeze through a dry and brittle forest rang out because if her head hadn't been there it would have meant that her head would have been behind him and he would have been trapped in the same fate as the two that writhed and screamed and shuddered as they crumbled. They literately crumbled, their flesh drying and crumpling and crumbling, falling to dust and dirt upon the floor. They screamed the entire time. That was what made Ulrich shudder. The pair of Bat Clan Elves that were caught in the effects of Nanny Tatters' breath weapon screamed and screamed as their flesh crumbled off their bones. He was fairly certain that he could still hear them screaming even after their bones cracked and disintegrated into dust.

Nanny Tatters stopped inhaling and burped slightly. Her hide was a darker shade of brown and there was a faint gleam to it, the slightest shine of health. She shuffled her wings, the membranes between the fingers thicker and broader, looking less a mat of stretched tissue threads and more like a smooth stretch of wing skin.

Sabal struck out with his sword, trying to capitalize on the panic that Nanny Tatters' breath weapon had caused as the squad disintegrated into the surviving members that were left. The Bat Clan member managed to duck but he didn't strike back, confusion and fear ruling his reactions, eyes darting hither and tither, trying to find an escape route, a direction to run in, feeling the chill filling up his limbs every time he met Sabal's eyes. He had been taught from birth that the Elves of the other clans were weak, small minded, jealous, easy to trick and beguile, that they had driven out the Bat Clan because they were afraid of their more powerful superiors but this one, this one had a power he couldn't name and couldn't face. Every time he tried, he felt his limbs growing weak and his breath turning cold in his lungs.

Tasnar charged but his opponent also ducked and dodged, slashing back, a feral sounding growl rising as they clashed, neither backing down, neither giving quarter, desperation giving strength. All the Bat Clan Elves knew what would happen to them if they went back as failures, Tasnar knew what would happen to him if he went back to Lady Zilvra as a failure. They broke and slashed, balanced despite their desperation, graceful despite their anger. Failure was not an option, not when the skinny knife hovered over that path. There was only one way this fight was going to play out and that was with one of them laying bleeding on the rocks while the other walked away.

Tasnar's opponent shrieked as a red line opened up on his arm, Ulrich's sword scoring a bloody trail that lifted the skin off the muscle below. He span away from both of them, breath hissing in short gasps taken through the teeth, eyes darting back and forth. There was no way out, going through lead to the edge of the cliff, going right led passed the heaving, slamming bulk of the ancient red dragon and the flying priest thing that pulled on a power that crawled through the mind, left led passed everyone else and behind him was the cliff, sheer, towering, seeming taller with every second. There wasn't any way out and his breath went thinner as panic rose.

Estella changed her stance, shifting her feet, stepping sideways, moving with the flow, pulling on the energy of the battle. Anger gave strength to blows, fury was the power of survival. She pulled on it, felt it, remember her most precious treasure that she had left behind and now her hands were fists as she punched the power through the air. Her treasure maybe safe but that didn't mean that she didn't feel the separation. She was a dragon, parted from her horde and now she was feeling more than a little tetchy. The music of the talismans turned dark and fierce. She kicked. Not high kicks as if she was aiming for a body but a low kick, like kicking up a wave and a wave she did kick. The ground rippled, not with rock but with light. The Bat Clan Elf that had been closing with her, dodging her blows of magic sudden reeled back, snarling at something no other could see, sword slashing out.

"Where are you!?!" he screamed, "Come out you worthless coward! Come out and die like the worm you are! Come out and die! Come out, Mother of beasts! Coward! Scum! Wench! Bitch! Daughter of pigs! Mother of swine! You filthy, rutting... ugh!"

His eyes went wide as Estella's small axe smashed his collar bone and cracked his breast bone, severing the big arteries at the base of his neck and splitting his wind pipe. He blinked down at her snarling face, small, elfin, refined with its tip tilted nose and almond shaped eyes. She yanked at the handle of her axe. He tried to lift his blade. Her left fist smashed into his shoulder as the other hand didn't break its grip on her ax. His sword clattered away as his arm went limp to its finger tips. The talismans pecked as his eyes and yanked at his hair until his legs gave out and Estella succeeded in yanking the axe head free. She was shaking, teeth chattering but she did not look away as the light faded from his eyes, as he died.

Valodrael glanced at the depleted Ash Elves and decided that he had something more important to deal with. Shrinking from battle size to his more restful Clydesdale horse size, he padded over and nudged Estella with his nose. She dropped the axe as she wilted and then turned to burying her face against his nebula speckled hide. He sat and mantled her with his wings. He had no problem with the kill but he had seen enough of Estella's kind to known that they often found the first time that they killed to be distressing and he could keep her safe while she worked through the shock of it. She was his horde and a dragon always keeps his horde safe.

Sabal grinned as Weatherall managed to snatch a Bat Clan Elf up in his claws. Unlike his shell bound cast brother, Weatherall did not waste time slowly squeezing his prey to see if it was palatable, he finished the job in one swift pinch that had the Bat Clan Elf  laying in two different places at once, with barely a chance to scream.

The vigor snarled and chattered up at Jeremiah, their long ears twitching as they zeroed in on the sound of his beating wings, their pale eyes narrowed as they tracked the shadow of his outline in their strange sight. They drew their arms back then hurled their short javelins.

Jeremiah smiled. Honestly, some people had such an over inflated opinion of their own abilities, they actually believed that they could possibly come close to... 

 He yowled, faltering in the air, his wing hampered by the sharp, hot pain of the javelin piercing through the membrane. Dropping more than he liked, he managed to grab the offending weapon and between a quick yank and the back beat of his wing, pull it free. He spiraled higher, glaring at the repulsive little gremlins as a second and then a third javelin fell short of his form, a reedy whistling sound ringing out as the air blew through the hole in his wing.

"Nice tune Jerries," Thorian called up to the hovering priest, grinning as he swung his sword again and again at what was left of the Bat Clan Elves. Jeremiah glared and then managed to bat the next javelin that came close away with a wing edge. The buffet of wind sent the last javelin tumbling in the air and as javelins are pointed at both ends, that had some what dire results for the last vigor standing, piercing through his chest. She swayed, her own javelin tumbling from nerveless fingers as her eyes gazed over and she tumbled to the floor. The vigor screamed, not the concentrated power of their sonic shock but still enough to make the cavern ring and trigger rock falls in the distance, tugging and pulling at their ears as they wept for their fallen comrade. Jeremiah smiled even more. It was always so; the witless, brute beasts forgot what their purpose was and therefore went to pieces when they were reminded of their proper position in the world.

Kaelin beat her wings, unable to force herself into the air while the wound in her back burned, feeling like someone was digging a hole either side of her spine with flaming torches but the clouting weight of her pinions kept the spiders at bay, their fangs have no effect on her feathers. They lunged, one after another, legs scraping and rubbing over the stones, bristling urticating hairs lodging in the vanes of her wings as they flicked their last weapon of attack at her. Sweat ran down Kaelin's face. She wasn't going to be able to kept this up much longer.

The last spider left alive scuttled in a circle, paps waving to and fro, abdomen shaking with confusion. 

 "What are you waiting for?" the Bat Clan Noble snarled, "Bind him!" She jabbed a finger at Tikrumpdel, words and gesture loaded with power. The giant spider jerked and turned, legs gathering bundles of silk from its spinnerets and flicking them over the massive dragon, anchoring him over and over again to the rocks.

"It's Thorian time!" said orc crossbreed billowed, sword crashing down through the air, snapping the elf blade raised in resistance in two. The elf splashed apart, chopping to the waist by Thorian's prodigious strength.

"One to me!" Thorian bellow.

"Well done Sir!" Tasnar snapped, face tight as he battled his own foe, not gaining ground and injury only heartbeats away. His blade twisted in nimble fingers but his arms were beginning to burn. He ducked under a blow, lashed out at knee height, forced his foe back, lunged, turned and came up between the Bat Clan Elf and the cliff face. He struck out, a series of blows that had speed but lacked an elf's usual grace. His foe backed away, grinning, believing Tasnar to have stupidly put himself on the worse ground, flagging and running out of energy. The Bat Clan Elf only had to avoid him for a little longer and then he'd be able to stick Tasnar like a bug on a pin.

He felt the movement behind him but did not turn. Then Tasnar jumped back, wincing as he thudded into the cliff but grinning as he gave something else the space it needed. The Bat Clan Elf had only half turned when Nanny Tatters' front feet crashed down, elbows locked, her whole weight behind them.

The Ash Elf burst like an over ripe plum smacked with a mallet.

Nanny Tatters lifted a foot and shook it slightly, shaking at the gunk that dripped from her paw. She sniffed it and then started wiping her feet across the floor, leaving smears of blood and worse across the stones.

"Scrape it off Jim!" Ulrich laughed as he closed with the last Bat Clan elf of the Northern squad.

"You what?" Thorian asked, confusion wrinkling his nose but Ulrich was whooping too hard to notice. Peter bit at the Ash Elf but desperation was making the bat nosed elf fast on his feet, staying just ahead of Peter's scissoring mandibles.

It wasn't helped by Peter being throw off by Tikrumpdel's latest heave. Silk strands creaked and groaned, filaments popping free as the massive dragon strained his bulk against the bounds entangling him. A rope pinning him to the floor snapped, cracking back with the force of a whip, another fraying, threads popping free along much of its length. Tikrumpdel strained his jaws, silk tearing as his teeth began to part.

"You there," Jeremiah barked, commanding his Ash Elf puppet, "Deal with these vermin." He flicked dismissive fingers at the vigor.

The puppet shuffled away from Jeremiah's vigor pack barer, shambling towards the wailing group of vigor. They turned to this new threat, teeth bared in snarls, hands reaching for more javelins.

One of them fell back, hand clammed to the side of its head as its ear bled. It opened its mouth to scream at the Ash Elf Puppet. The puppet shot it through the mouth with its hand bow, the bolt tearing through its spinal cord and smashing into the eyes socket of the vigor behind it.

Jeremiah grinned. It was gratifying to finally have some proper servants, even if his wing was still whistling through that stupid hole.

Seeing that Ulrich and the others had the northern unit of Bat Clan all neatly wrapped up, Sabal turned to the shuddering bulk of the dragon that they had been trying to make an ally of. He looked at his sword. The blades of the Ash Elves where only edged on one side, so if he made sure to keep the dull side against Tikrumpdel's hide there should be no risk of cutting him. He guided and goaded Weatherall up to Tikrumpdel's side and tried to thread his blade between the white net of spider web and Tikrumpdel's scales. He managed to do so but when he went to saw through the filaments his sword stuck, the webs clinging to the blade. He yanked at it, struggling to pull it free. The last Bat Clan Elf of the northern squad saw his chance and charged.

Quenril was there first, his blade cutting across the Bat Clan Elf's path, keeping him from his cousin's back. They crossed, block and cut, blow and guard, the Bat Clan snarling with fear and fury in equal measure, Quenril frowning with concentration, he only needed to keep the Bat Clan Elf busy for a few more minutes and then he would be so out numbered it wouldn't be funny any more. It crossed Quenril's mind that if his foe broke and ran he, Quenril, didn't feel the need to chance him down and kill him to prove he was better any more. For some reason that knowledge actually felt good, it appeared that hatred was a weight that you didn't realize that you were carrying until you dropped it on the floor. The bat Clan Elf won't run though, he couldn't think of the alternative, there was only victory or death, years of being told that life wasn't worth living if you ran, that surrender was the path of the weak and worthless ruled his mind completely. He was frantic, feral, unable to break a life time of conditioning.

Ulrich's blade whistled, light flashing off the length of the blade.

The Bat Clan elf turned, ready to strike, then his arm parted company from the rest of him. His head wobbled for a  moment and then it fell off backwards, tipping off his neck to bounce on the floor and roll away in two halves.

"Thank you Nabob," Quenril inclined his head to Ulrich.

"Think nothing of it, old boy," Ulrich grinned, "You've done the same for me more times than I care to think about."

Quenril inclined his head, a silent acknowledgement that Ulrich had changed so many things among the Snake Clan Ash Elves. It was strange to realize that they had learnt so much from a non-elf, a possibility that they had never considered before, one that would have seemed blasphemous not that many candle times before.

Kaelin could hear the battle behind her winding down and could only hope that they realized that she was in trouble soon. Her back felt strange, like the pain was beginning to drain out of it but she knew from experience that was not a good sign. If she didn't get help soon she'd either be taking the bony ones hand or she'd be at the mercy of Jeremiah's attention. She had seen how Ulrich flinched at odd moment and the smell of his fear bloomed at odd moments, as if he was seeing something the rest of them were missing and that had only started since Jeremiah had healed him while they were in the dwerg's city.

A spider once again rushed her, trying to bite at her, to get another mouthful out of her. She didn't hide. Oh, she let it rake its fangs down her feathers again but as it reached the bottom of its blow, when it was at its most unbalanced, she snapped her wings open and lunged.

The spider squealed as her fangs clamped down, seizing it between its first and second leg. Ignoring her screaming back she ripped her head back and forth, lifting it from the floor, shaking and shaking again as she squeezed her teeth down harder and harder. With a crackly squish, spider came apart in a flying splatter. It was not a quiet process.

"Marmaduke!" Ulrich barked, "Help her!"

He had finally seen Kaelin's peril and he silently cursed that she had some how wound up so far away. Just what had she been thinking? Trying to hold the right flank that far out! There was being a perilous beast and then there was being just damn reckless!

The last Ash Elf took advantage of the distraction that Ulrich's shout had caused but not in the way that had been hammered into him since birth. He turned on his heel and sprinted back to the cliff face, leaping to grab a hanging line, swarming up it hand over hand, sobbing with the effort, crying out as he thought he felt someone's sword whisper passed his foot. He should not have worried about blades. Unfortunately, for him, death sometimes wore a scaly face and was controlled by someone who had a prevented sense of humor.

"Nanny Tatters?" Jeremiah called, "Do clean that up, would you? There's a good girl."

The Bat Clan Ash Elf scrambled, sobbing as he tried to get high effort.

He screamed, once, a sound that cut of abruptly as Nanny Tatters' nipped his head off, like a cat nipping off a flower from its stem.

"Oh seriously!" Ulrich called up to Jeremiah, "Did you have to do that? He was retreating!"

"Best time to make sure that they are dead then," Jeremiah called back, hovering just out of the reach of the vigors' javelins, "This way we do not have to worry about him coming back with more of his friends." He ignored Nanny Tatters delicately picking at the still twitching corpse with the precise, almost delicate motions of a Corvus pitching over one of the fallen in a battle. Ulrich frowned. An undead creature shouldn't be interested in eating, they had no need of it, they were dead, by their very nature they had no need for sustenance. Jeremiah should be worried about this development, especially as Nanny Tatters now seemed to be almost whole again, almost.

"Now, one last job to attend to," Jeremiah smiled and looked for the Bat Clan Noble but the edge of the cliff was empty.

The sound of running footsteps echoed from the upper cave. The Bat Clan Noble was bunking for it, her panicked flight resounding behind her.

"Oh dear," Jeremiah smiled, "Tell me, good Quenril what will be done to a Noble who has failed such a mission as this?"

Quenril looked thoroughly uncomfortable about either the question or the answer.

"She will most likely be turned into one of the Disgraced," he shuddered.

"Ah and here was I only going to kill her," Jeremiah smiled, "Shame she didn't think about the offer."

"Indeed," Quenril muttered and then turned, heading towards where Kaelin faced down the last two of her spiders at a trot.

Valodrael opened his wings as Quenril jogged passed.

"Are you recovered, my dear one?" he rumbled. Estella nodded after a moment, rubbing her eyes, still slightly shaken by the violence that she had found herself capable of.

"Would you mind then if I help with finishing the clean up?" he asked.

"Of course not," she smiled.

"Then with my lady's permission," he inclined his head to her and then turned to spread his wings.

Tikrumpdel drew back, growling through his muzzle of spider silk, making the fibers rasp and squeal but Valodrael did not have eyes for him, what he was interested in had eight legs and confusion filling its eyes as its mistress had abandoned it.

Valodrael opened his maw and struck.

Tikrumpdel's eyes opened wide as Valodrael's head whipped back and forth, the spider's legs thrashing in the air, its abdomen wriggling frantically between Valodrael's teeth. Valodrael tipped his head back and began gulping. The spider slowly slipped out of view, legs wriggling and kicking to the very last. Valodrael lifted a finger and pocked the last one in as a shape that may have been a mass of thrashing legs bulged under his hide. He smacked his lips.

"Hmmmm," he rumbled appreciatively, "Now there's a new flavor. Something chard and smoky, hints of chicken and nuts. I think I like it."

Tikrumpdel growled. 

"My apologies for invading your territory," Valodrael turned, inclining his head and opening his wings into a tilt that was most decidedly a bow in Tikrumpdel's direction, "But I have to go where my hoard goes and I did rather believe that you wouldn't begrudge me a little snack along the way."

Tikrumpdel's snout wriggled in a frown under his layers of swaddling.

The vigor squeaked and jumped about, dodging Valodrael's slowly waving tail, ears fluttering and squashed, puggish faces snarling but not one of them dared to strike at it.

"Oh please," Jeremiah called, "This is the point you... people are supposed to run away. Going on, shoe."

"They're not shoes," Thorian called, "They have bare feet."

Jeremiah closed his eyes and began counting slowly to ten then snapped his eyes open again a javelin hissed passed him.

"Seems they have joined the 'I hate Jair-e-my-ha' club," Thorian grinned as he cleaned off his sword and stuffed it back into its scabbard, "What do you reckon the mem-ber-ship price is?"

Jeremiah glared.

Tikrumpdel gathered himself and heaved again. Silk tore with a liquid sound, ropes of it parting. One wing tore free, a leg shredded its way out of the swaddling bindings, sheets of the stuff flapped loose. He yanked his head side ways and a rip opened up along his neck, his chins beginning to fall free.

Weatherall lifted his claws and tired to snip apart some of the stuff coating Tikrumpdel but then discovered a problem. Despite what they look like, crab claws are not actually like scissors, they have no sharp cutting edge to slice through any substance. Instead they crush their prey until flesh gives up and parts under pressure. It turned out that strategy didn't work on spider silk as the fibers didn't crush under the pressure they just bent. Weatherall waggled his eye stalks. He opened his pinching claws. He waggled his eye stalks again. He waved his claw but the white mat of stuff stayed stuck on his claw. He plucked it off his claw with the other claw. He waggled his eye stalks again. He waved his other set of claws but the white mat of stuff stuck to that set now. He plucked it off with the original set of claws and then waggled his eye stalks again. It was stuck there now!

Jeremiah rolled his eyes. Such little things pleased little minds. A javelin scorched passed his back side and he turned in the air to glare passed his feet at the pack of vigor who were jabbering and howling up at him. There was still five of the little pests and he was bored of dealing with their antics. His wing whistled, a permanent reminder of these irritating little vermin and their disregard for the glory for his god. He narrowed his eyes and beat higher into the air, lips moving in his beard as he whispered the prayer to his god, the syllables of power mixed with spite and vanity. The glow built between his fingers.

The blast of cinders and embers giggled through the air, casing shadows that dancing with limbs that were native somewhere in the uncanny valley.

Valodrael narrowed his eyes. He was sure one of those shadows was too long in the arm and leg whilst also being too narrow in the waist, its head crown with a pair of stick like antlers, a dark night carnival mask brought to life as it crawled over the rocks towards the frantically cringing vigor.

The vigor screamed as the giggling, crackling embers peeled them out of their skins, one scrap at a time. Fat bubbled, flesh sloughed off the bone, skeletons lost cohesion.

"Accept the offering made unto you, Mighty Klu'ga-nath," Jeremiah muttered, "May the sacrifice made by my hands be acceptable unto you for the praise and glory of your name, for good and the good of all your church."

The cinders and shadows writhed as, one by one, the vigor fell, the impossible substance of Jeremiah's spell curling into the shape of an impossible dragon, its form warping the air around it, reality curdling up at the edges and weeping with the strain. Valodrael backed away from it, mouth opening in a warning hiss. Tikrumpdel heaved his bulk and shuffled backwards away from the glowing, darkening form. It didn't bother to look at him, the old dragon a non entity as far as this thing was concerned. Instead it turned its gaze of Valodrael, an aura of threat rolling off the insanity of its form.

Reality creaked at the seams as, without changing size, Valodrael expanded to face this insubstantial foe, teeth bared, eyes shining with power, snow flakes forming and falling round his mouth as the steams and fogs of the cavern drifted into the Chill of the Void, even while the index claw on his left 'hand' lengthen and throbbed with the red hot heat of a sun.

"Make it stop!" Ulrich yelled, "Make it stop!"

It looked like he was about to throw up.

"Why Ulrich, you look positively ill," Jeremiah drifted down to land near him, "Do you need me to ask the One True God for your healing again?" 

"Not on your nelly," Ulrich exclaimed, dashing sweat from his brow, "You have provided the cure by stopping what ever it was you were flaming well doing! Just about everyone on this team would feel a lot better if you would stop opening the door for that... personage that you call your god."

"But Ulrich," Jeremiah bowed, "Surely you would ask a man to abandon the care of his god? To come out from under the umbrella of protection? Have you forgotten about all the great and marvelous things the One True God has done for us? You must realize that without his aid we would not have made it this far."

"Oh Aye," Ulrich agreed, "He may have given us a fine lot help but I'm still wondering when he is going to demand the payment for all his help."

"My dear Ulrich," Jeremiah smiled, basking in the warmth radiating from the books at his back, "Gods do not ask for payment, if you love them, fear them, do as they say, then they give you everything that you need."

"Really?" Ulrich asked, "So you needed to be kicked out of your abbey did you?"

He turned away to go and help Weatherall, leaving Jeremiah to grind his teeth behind him.

The spiders were pushing Kaelin back now. She was tired, her head hurt and she could feel... well it felt like the breeze was inside her back, which could not be a good sign. She retreated, stepping back slowly, keeping her wings in play, buffeting the spiders aside every time they lunged. They were persistent buggers, she had to given them that. The battle behind her had gone quiet so she hoped that it meant that some of the rest of the King's Special would be coming to help her out. She hoped, but there again it could be that the reason it had gone quiet was that she had died without noticing it and this was her hell. She'd heard a preacher some where say that hell was being trapped forever doing what you were doing the moment that you died, tormented by you last moments over and over again. Was this her hell, constantly fight with a pair of giant spiders, cursed for there to be always two of them, no matter however many she cut down? To battle forever with this pain in her head, her eyes trying to shut, exhaustion dragging at her limbs until she wanted to just lay down on the stones and sleep?

 Tasnar tried to tear at the spider webbing encasing the big dragon but the stuff stuck and clung, clung like bad news, clung like the black ooze that bubbled out of the ground in some places of Hestia.

Ulrich sized up the mass of white webbing and the shifting, straining bulk trapped within. He hefted his sword as Peter trundled them nearer and then struck out. A rope of silk parted, a cable snapped, smaller strands tearing as the tension rippled through the web, pieces ripping loose as the support structure began to come undone.

 Sabal stumbled back, his sword no longer trapped against Tikrumpdel's side but still unable to help as the spider silk clung on the blade, flapping in the breeze as Sabal tugged and pulled. Sabal backed up and backed up again, ripping more and more of it loose as he pulled and tugged and yanked, his blade still tangled in the stuff.

"Will you let the feck go!?!" he demanded, trying, unsuccessfully to shake the stuff loose.

"You do know that talking to possessions  is the first sign of madness?" Ulrich asked as he came over to help Sabal.

"If that is the case I've been mad for quite a while, haven't I?" Sabal grunted, "I'm talking to you."

Ulrich blinked.

"Favorites are possessions of their lady," Sabal explained. Ulrich blinked again and blushed, trying to squeeze his brain through the idea of being a kept man. That was a bit of a shock.

Kaelin growled. Her stomach was feeling sick again and nobody seemed to notice the fact that she was still in trouble. With a snarl she jerked her wings up, unbalancing her foes and struck out. One spider scuttled back, squealing as the yellow goo dripped from its ruptured eye, the other gathered its split leg and held it close as it backed away.

Kaelin snarled as she crouched, spreading her claws.

"Go away!" she spat, "Go on! Go! Just push off and leave me be!"

It was only half way serious threat, a great part of it was bluff. She was sick and tired and she hurt. All she wanted was to crawl into bed some where and slept it off for about six weeks. Now she could thoroughly understand why Tikrumpdel had been trying to sleep it off for two or three centuries. If she had a life span that long she would have been thoroughly tempted to do the same.

Jeremiah turned his head and looked back towards the bridge. Ah that explained why Kaelin hadn't been with them, she been holding a party all of her very own with an exclusive guest list. Jeremiah tugged his beard. It was really rather rude of her to not invite them to her party but it did rather look like she was having trouble with some of her guests. The question was, therefore, did he bother to play the part of a bouncer?

A nasty sounding crunch rang out.

Jeremiah glanced side ways and saw that Nanny Tatters was busy cleaning up the battle field by nipping the heads off the fallen. He smiled indulgently and then turned back to the problem of Kaelin. Nanny Tatters was busy but he still had two other assets and one of them he hadn't fully tested out its capabilities. He smiled and drifted over to his Ash Elf Puppet on a couple of wing beats. He whispered something in its ear.

Kaelin looked with resignation as the giant spiders facing her as they rallied. This really didn't seem to be ending, one of those nightmares where no matter how hard you run you never manage to out pace the monster that was following you. She knew that it was a common nightmare though, for her, the monster always following her was her grandfather. Funny what the brain thought about when it was about to die.

The spider furthest away from her popped, goo and pieces flying in all directions, splashing the stones with yellow paste. Jeremiah smiled as his Ash Elf Puppet lower its hand bow to hang at its side as it slumped, held up only by its master's will.

Kaelin blinked. The last spider tensed, torn between leaping on her distraction and trying to work out what had just happened to its last companion.

Marmaduke arrived with the weight of an entire consignment of brass kettles, feet first.

Kaelin reached a hand up and wiped the goo from her eyes and Marmaduke continued to jump up and down on the luckless spider, making absolutely sure that it was well and truly ground into the ground. Kaelin was, one had to say, well and truly covered in spider gloop, it was practically dripping off of her. Somehow that was completely and utterly funny and Kaelin bit her lip to stop herself from bursting out laughing. Maybe it was realizing that her friends hadn't forgotten her as much as she thought they had. Then a truly wicked idea crossed her mind and some days, days such as this when she was tried and in pain, Kaelin's impulse control wasn't the best that it could be.

Ignoring the stabs of red hot pain in her back she beat into the air and dived towards Ulrich.

"Thanks for sending the help! Big hugs!" she yelled as she came towards him.

Ulrich told one look at the gloop covered thing that swooped towards him and threw himself off of Peter's back to avoid it. Kaelin tripped and stumbled as she landed but thankfully Ulrich had still been fairly close to Tikrumpdel so instead of face planting into solid stone, Kaelin face planted into the vast dragon's side, which was, it must be said, fairly bouncy. She stumbled back but kept her footing.

"As much as I appreciate the sentiment Kaelin," Ulrich said as he stood back up on his own two feet, "I would prefer it after you have had a chance to bathe and be slightly less loaded with, shall we say, grunge."

"Oh, you have a problem with this goo your help managed to coat me in?" Kaelin smiled, keeping down the urge to scream. Her back really did have a problem, "As you wish."

Ulrich only just managed to get his arms up in time to prevent it from splattering his face as Kaelin shook herself vigorously. He lowered his arms and looked at his sleeves. He sighed.

Sabal blinked and lifted a finger to wipe a droplet of gunge off his cheek.

The last of the silk wrappings burst as Tikrumpdel started laughing. He laughed until he wobbled with it. He laughed until the cavern rang. He laughed until he cried. He rolled over sideways, thankfully away from the King's Special, clutching his paunch until he finally managed to get himself under control. The rock slope groaned under his weight.

"That was completely vulgar," a voice said from around Kaelin's neck. Kaelin looked down to see that her locket had been knocked open during the fight and the painted lady, Charlotte Darling, peering out of the little canvas that was usually hidden within.

"You have an inkling of my childhood,"Kaelin said deadpan, "Are you surprised?"

Charlotte thought about and then sighed.

"No I suppose not."