Chương 204: BECMI Chapter 203 – Karmic Rewards

The dragon's head snaked around, gaping wide and ready to clamp down on Braun, when two arrows nearly took out his eye in mid-strike, knocking it aside and turning the lunge into a glancing hit that knocked the big fellow Braun sprawling but intact, Axe and shield still firmly in his hands. A Word was hissed, and four Shards of force energy materialized and shot out at the two archers in the trees, two each finding homes and nailing them like arrows themselves as the magical missiles found their targets unerringly.

In return, eight more of the Shards came in on him from multiple directions from scattered wizards, and the dragon convulsed and shuddered under impacts of force traveling along its nervous system. Messime's dracoclaw struck one more time, unleashing another deadly lash of electricity as it did so… but this time it was grasping the hilt of Laird, shoving the Claymore in deeper with magical strength as the Shocking Grasp it was channeling discharged deep and true.

The dragon screamed yet again as his heart gyrated, pulsed, and his entire body trembled in reaction to the attack. Paralyzed by its reactive convulsions, he shuddered and tried to move… and the alchemical bolt from Chekwort's crossbow, backed by a vial of alchemical frost, finally found his eye, plunging in deep. The bolt impacted the vial's contents, and scattered alchemical frost all around inside his skull. The dragon's agony didn't last too long, his brain freezing from the inside out.

Twitching muscles finally gave up the struggle, and the second dragon collapsed only a few yards from his sister, the air and the ruin of his eye snapping and popping as ice crawled and condensed around the bolt jutting out there. Everyone was quiet again, and even the forest sounded like it was going still. Lady Edge calmly walked forward from behind a tree, pointing in the direction the dragon had come from.

"Go secure the hoard and be wary of traps. There are no more sapient enemies nearby. I will guard the corpses and start on the butchering with Duum. If you find remains, gather them up and we will try to identify them."

"Yes, m'lady!" the Mick promised fervently. It was a consideration with every single place they'd hit. If they found the skulls or remains of humans, elves, or other victims, they brought them away to be identified, and closure to be sent off to their friends and relatives. It was a very subtle but powerful thing to do with magic, with White Necromancy, vivus, and burial in a consecrated graveyard, even if it was only a small grave with a simple plaque there to indicate where they had been buried.

That simple and utter respect for the dead did more to earn the excitable Zanzyrans a good reputation than all their flashy magic, and the Caer who was most insistent on such things earned the most of that simple judgment.

Duum, unable to fly in the Stillflight Field here, ambled up next to me on all fours as the students and their guards, trailed by a half-score of Disks eager to take any plunder (or remains) headed off eagerly for the dragons' lair before anything else could work up the nerve to challenge them for it. They'd gotten better at spotting and testing for traps, too, although they'd no dedicated thieves with them.

It wasn't particularly important, and the job naturally triggered the need for several more spells for them to research to address the need. They didn't see that Duum had a lot of fresh blood on his claws and jaws, and several wounds that began to close under my touch as I laid my hand upon him. The twenty cultist warriors and the three priests leading them, seeking to ambush our group after the fight with the dragon, weren't going to be found by anyone.

Their equipment was already piled up and would be quietly added to the haul when they came out. I first shot Vivic Barbs into all the dead nifloids, the ones that weren't already ash swiftly set into pale unwhite flames that would repair all the torn and ripped soil and undergrowth with great speed, also reducing most of the furs and leathers to something beneficial to the forest, leaving only metalwork behind to be salvaged.

The adamantine hooks and knives for fitting over his dewclaws snapped into place, and Duum cheerfully began to practice his art of opening up dragons for butchering, while I made jars for their blood and Exsanguinating Tubes snaked out, plunged into open wounds, and magically began to suck out the precious fluid for either use or resale. Most parts of a dragon were worth something, although the meat of a green was run through with what tasted like chlorinated bleach and was particularly unpalatable.

Duum wouldn't touch it, and it would have to soak in a de-acidifying agent for a month, then be dried out for another week over fragrant wood smoke, and then pickled in an appropriate medium to replace what it had lost before finally being ready for eating. All of which I was perfectly happy to get started on, and bring back to the Inn. I had a good dozen marinades in mind, and the great thing was, we could serve them over and over and over again at the Inn.

They would be dishes fit for emperors simply because it was both hard to acquire and a total pain in the arse to make. Most people tended to focus on the hides and the bones, as those were the main requirements for most Dragoncraft magical items. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. I was sure both Rika and Chekwort would appreciate properly upgraded Weapons, as neither owned a magical missile Weapon.

I could do the preliminary treatments for Dragoncraft during my down time, roping in Messime and Nico to help with a very useful field of alchemical study. All in all, it had been very fruitful time spent here, almost two weeks of hurrying to and fro chasing very bad people and introducing them to the other end of the 'fighting back' equation rather testily.

The kids had gained some nice real world experience, learned about fighting with more than magic and that non-wizards really could make positive contributions in combat… and that clever opponents could really neutralize a lot of what a wizard could do, and wouldn't all just fall over obediently and die. They actually had to work and be clever to make that happen. Who knew, right?

I heard an explosion from the direction of the lair, the Mick's very loud cursing at Izziamor, always the most impulsive of the lot, and just shook my head as adamantine blades, a really big Bat, and Telekinesis got to work disassembling two younger dragons for components. The dragonlings' parents were likely not going to be very happy with me, and the odds were that green up in the Ruge Lowlands setting up a territory was their mother. Pity her.

Few people had known about her, but now the elves did, and the push was starting towards her territory as hunters headed that way low and slow, aiming to find out her habits and lair locations, neutralize any of the minions she most certainly had, and basically close a quiet net around her and the network of servants a green almost inevitably established around themselves before the trap was snapped shut and they got rid of her. But we wouldn't be there when that particular event happened.

It would be a nice thing for Shaemla to undertake if she dared to go get the Wizard training in Erendyl…

There was a final celebration in Corillinian to see us off, conquering heroes being feted and danced about by many a fine-looking elven local interested in dalliance… and overseen by me to make sure there were no ringers or shape-changers in the bunch. Of which there was one, and Duum removed it in several pieces discreetly. Doppelgangers just don't like it when their disguises are seen through and everything.

He was in the equivalent of a courtly suit, a courtier's outfit whose braids and sashes and epaulets proclaimed his status and importance for all to see. Going a bit over the top was sort of a requirement with many people in this day and age, and wouldn't be a reason I leaned so hard into my image, it would not. That said, everyone was trying to celebrate, and here he was ruining my mood with his delivery of an official invitation from the Archduke. I didn't open it.

Actually, it floated from his hand back to the satchel at his waist without ever being opened when he tried to hand it to me.

"Baronet Midevvi," I stated, my irritated mood looking suspiciously similar to my jovial mood, which had an amazing resemblance to my it's-another-day mood, "I have no intentions of heading south to meet with the Archduke. My path takes me east to the elven clans across the border forests. I have no business with the Archduke, nor do I intend to invent any."

The officious twit, so secure in his power and authority as a member of the conquering race, looked a bit out of sorts at his paperwork being refused so smoothly, and belatedly remembered that I was not a citizen of this conquered land, and thus not beholden to its ruler. He opted for the normal approach of exerting his authority and trying to be intimidating.

"Lady Edge, the actions of yourself and your colleagues in Warsherz have been equal parts heroic and suspicious in their manner and form. Refusing the invitation of the Archduke shines a dire light upon your deeds, and your status of coming from a nation of willful and trouble-making wizards does not help with such an image!" he promptly warned and accused me, secure in his position and authority.

"Your misinterpretations and delusions about myself, my friends, and our actions are of no concern to us," I replied without batting an eye at him.

"As yet, I've received no invitation, only your word about it, and given the somewhat crazed statements that have passed your lips, I suspect you are a half-wit and somewhat mentally challenged, so I shall discount your words as the drivel they are. You may depart now without me turning you into a frog for your insulting behavior.

"Or, you may remain and continue speaking." My eyes glowed blood-red, and I lifted one finger, two, green light gathering to the tips of black nails. He opened his mouth to say something about me not daring, and the utterly bored expression on my face did more to convince him that I considered him scum on my dancing shoes and would dispose of him without a second thought than my words.

His lips flapped, but no words made it out of a throat gone suddenly dry, only a sound that sounded very suspiciously like the croaking of a frog making it out of him. I just lifted an eyebrow as if he'd given me approval to introduce him to a joyful new experience in life. Shaelma swooped in, grasped his elbow artfully and spun him around while also pulling him away, so smoothly the fact he almost fell over in stiff-legged fear was almost completely hidden.

"Baronet Midevvi, the Lady Edge is going to be leaving Warsherz in the morning, out of your concern and the Archduke's. You might wish to consider how little the Archduke desires to irritate a whole party of Zanzyran wizards versus how much you like staying a grown human, and all you have to do is admit that you could not get the invitation into her hands before she departed, sadly enough."

"I…" He started to turn back around, thought better of it, and kept right on going, following the hand on his elbow leading him towards a throng of revelers dancing to an elven minstrel or two playing away.

"I think that might be a good idea," he admitted, straightening up and not looking back.

"And you're not going to get anyone to dance with you if you keep that jacket on, Honorable Midevvi. And it looks frightfully hot, regardless…" Shaelma made a much better silken glove than I did, giving me a wave behind her head. I smirked inside, turned away, and regarded my path through to the Cyapri lands and Siricil beyond. Siricilans tended to get even more arrogant and unscrupulous in their own homelands, I'd heard tell, as local law enforcement always favored them over visitors.

The elves here had plenty of stories to tell about them, and the fact very few Siricilans were anything remotely approaching trustworthy was pretty universal. Nico Bastionelli wasn't surprised in the slightest, and indicated that if a story contradicted this, they'd probably been paid by the Siricilans to spread it. We definitely weren't going to be stopping much in Siricil, if we could help it at all.