Chương 207: Chapter 283: Extinction Event

William Oh once eloped with a dragon, but they broke up shortly afterwards because the legend was too well-endowed. Robert Thatcher, level 15 carpenter Will hopped to his feet, his mind racing. Aguilion is coming to honor the deal. I need to arrange a huge amount of food, and I don't have enough to create two resource nodes just yet. Will had about a hundred and fifty thousand Influence, but he was planning on using it on a giant Skeleton…

assuming he could buy one from the giants on the other side of the mountain or Zodiac. I hope I can convince him to wait a couple months while Jorn earns me more Influence, Will thought as he rushed out to the balcony, scanning the sky for the green dragon. Instead, he spotted a pearlescent one about twice the size, bearing down on the Stronghold. Huh… Maribelle must've bought a Door from Carrie Envar. What's she doing here? Was Will's first thought. Wait, isn't she coming on awfully fast?

"WILLIAM OH! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BROTHER!?" Maribelle's voice shook the earth below the Stronghold.

"Huh. He didn't come here, though?" Will mused. Maribelle's jaws opened wide, a bright light forming inside her throat as she swooped down over the Stronghold. Direct her down? No, some people will get hurt, and some of the buildings will get destroyed… Although…

I have been wanting to expand and redesign the Stronghold into a more functional city, but the problem was the local business owners would always fight against any changes, leaving us limping along with a core of infrastructure built around a population of a few hundred people. Look at me, fighting with the local city council already. I've truly become a Lord. Will shot into the sky and solidified the air in front of Maribelle in an upward slant.

Her flame breath shot straight up like a spout but the dragon herself tore through the hardened air, claws splayed as she screamed towards the biggest building in the stronghold: Will's tower.

"Hey, can we talk about this?" Will said, matching Maribelle's speed as she dove for Will's tower. Maribelle tried to snap at Will. Will slipped out of the way and sent a burst of unstructured magic into the magical support of her left wing.

"ACK!" Between turning her head and losing lift from one wing, Maribel tumbled, slamming into Will's tower sideways before tumbling down the cliffside behind Will's tower, eventually coming to a halt in the orchards at the bottom. Well, at least she didn't break the septic pipe, Will thought, watching several floors of his wizard tower gradually floating away in mostly-whole chunks. It was composed primarily of anchorite now, so each floor floated on its own, and could withstand nearly any amount of force…

Except a dragon shoulder-checking it at full-speed. I'll have to reel those in later, Will thought, swooping down and following the trail of destroyed fruit trees until he landed beside where Mirabelle was rising to her feet.

"Maribelle, I haven't seen your brother," Will said.

"And if he were here, he would've been living nearby in the lap of luxury. You would've seen him already. I don't know what you think I did to him, but I haven't seen him."

"LIES! He told me of your offer, but he said he wasn't going to take it, then he disappeared, and Jericho disappeared, and Garth disappeared and Mother said it's probably your fault, so-" Maribelle raised a paw as she spoke, intending to continue attacking Will. Okay, we know she can hear me.

"Stop attacking or I'll kill you." Maribelle froze in place, slowly lowering her claws back to the earth. That was good, because there were far too many people with ears nearby that he didn't want to risk hitting with the Sickle of Malignant Silence. It said it only spread to 'enemies', but if the city council thought of him as their (political) enemy, it might pick up on them and spread to other civilians from there. The Relic was simply too dangerous to use on his own turf.

If Will had to do it the old-fashioned way, it would be difficult, there would be collateral damage, and there would be a solid change Will might not win. Maribelle didn't need to know that, though. She'd already seen what happened when someone ignored Will's first and only warning.

"Let's talk about this like rational adults." Will said, sitting down in front of her.

"O…Okay." Maribelle said, sitting down on her haunches. Will waved the gawking farmers away while Maribelle gathered herself.

"Explain the situation, from the beginning."

"Several of us have disappeared over the last few months. I confronted the Lordling of the nearby nest of Climbers, thinking they might've been trying to hunt dragons, but they showed no sign of having done so, neither the evidence, nor the capacity. I asked Mother, and she said we'd likely been drawn into your legend, so she accelerated our plans to migrate to the ninth floor. But that means abandoning Aggy, Jer, and the others…"

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Will held up a forestalling hand because it seemed like Maribelle might start crying and that would salt the fields of Will's new orchard.

"I can't deny they might've got into drawn into some kind of trouble that followed me, but I never intended to cause any harm so I would be more than happy to help…If you pay me."

"…What?"

"From my point of view, dragons are arrogant monsters who act on their emotions, substituting strength for careful consideration, and kill Climbers for sport while they're in the rut." Will said.

"That's an…oversimplification." Maribelle said, unable to meet Will's eyes.

"If you want me to find Aguilion for you, I'll ask from you the same payment I wanted from him." Maribelle gasped and covered herself.

"You beast, you were going to take my sickly younger brother's chastity, weren't you? You monster!" … The Abyss were you thinking? Will thought, frozen in disbelief as the dragon regarded him with suspicion.

"A dictionary. Dragon to English, written language. Pronunciation is optional."

"…is that really valuable?" Maribelle asked.

"In my hands, yes. It's very valuable." It would unlock Mother's grimoire, stored in Map's legend. Unlocking Mother's grimoire would in turn uncover secrets of magic that had been buried beneath mountains of time. Maribelle didn't need to know that either.

"I'll make one for you, it should only take a few years. AFTER you find my brother. And you must provide me a way home once I'm done.

"Fair deal." Will said, offering his hand.

"Alright, let's get started." Maribelle said, rising to her feet with determination.

"Actually, I can't leave for another nine days. I just got back to this Floor yesterday." Will said.

"But Aggy could be dying right now!" Maribelle exclaimed.

"How long after he disappeared did it take you to get here?"

"About a month."

"And how long can Dragons go without food or water?" Will asked.

"Couple years?" Maribelle said, tapping her chin. Really? Wow.

"If he isn't already dead, then he's probably going to be fine for now." Will said, pushing himself to his feet.

"But-""Stay here a week and get your head on straight. Have you ever had a roasted steakbug?" Will guided Maribelle into town, buying every vendor out of grilled steakbugs on the way through the streets.

"These things are tiny but I just can't stop snacking on them," Maribelle said, holding a wheelbarrow full of steakbugs in one palm while popping them into her mouth with the other. Will stopped at the city council and had Mirabelle beside him when he once again reminded them that the streets were too small for their current population. They couldn't even accommodate races with special sizes, like dragons.

The old bastards knew it was bullshit, but it was hard to disagree with someone with a dragon standing behind them, eating human-sized fistfuls of grilled meat while watching with fascination. Once bullying the city council was done, Will went and grabbed the sections of his tower that were floating away and got them back under control. They were moving slowly, only a foot or so per second, but anchorite didn't like changing its speed.

The amount of effort he had to expend in bringing them back outweighed the original impact by several orders of magnitude. Once Maribelle got her draconic instinct for knee-jerk violence under control, she actually became somewhat popular amongst the residents of the Burned Stronghold as something of a novelty. Out of all the regular visitors of the Burned Stronghold, Loth spent the most time with Maribelle, and Will could tell the kobold was becoming somewhat disenchanted with the myth of draconic superiority.

They aged very slowly, which meant they matured very slowly. The oldest ones like Mother lived up to their image, but most of them were immature and wound up getting killed before they achieved their full potential. Will watched in fascination as the Draconic Domain of Loth and Maribelle competed for territory, overlapping each other roiling over each other like the miasma of the world around them was boiling in slow motion.

Maribelle was fascinated by Laurence's inventions and enjoyed being used as a target for the anchorite bullets. She liked the challenge of dodging them and when she failed, claimed it was roughly the same intensity as a stiff shoulder bump.

After seeing his anchorite bullets shatter against Maribelle's scales, Laurence lost a bit of his enthusiasm for the project, but when Will reminded him that it could see further improvement once The System picked it up as an integrated weapon, the light came back to the inventor's eyes. Brianna elected to stay home. She had already had her fill of fighting. Travis was preoccupied with Emilie.

Apparently, he had sent an illusion to meet with her alone at a meeting he suspected of being a trap, and his connection to the illusion had been suddenly severed. When he confronted Emilie about it, she admitted to not attending the meeting with her real body either, so neither of them actually knew what happened. Apparently. Will's money was on the illusions eloping without their creators. Either that or they killed each other. It could go either way with those two.

At the end of the nine days, Will formed a Party with Loth and Maribelle and went back up to the 14 Floor. They passed through the 11 th Floor, dropped a letter off for Zodiac, then went through the 12 th and 13 th Floor quickly, reaching the 14 th in a matter of days.

"This way," Maribelle said, guiding them to the meeting place.

"We're gathering everyone up to make the migration as quick as possible this time. It's going much smoother than the last one, because Mother is awake."

"Mother! I've brought William Oh to clean up his mess!" Mirabelle shouted as they arrived at the clearing.

"Mother?" The place was empty, but the trampled ground suggested dozens of dragons had been here until recently. The trampled ground was littered also with miasmatic ash. Are they all dead?

"Mother!?"

"Maybe they went ahead and left immediately?" Maribelle asked.

"Do dragons turn to ash when they die?" Will asked.

"I umm…I don't know. I've never personally witnessed one of us die. Probably?" Maribelle said.

"Until recently I didn't think it was possible. Mother!?"

"Maribelle, you may wish to remain silent." Loth said, scanning the surroundings.

"I can't tell what did this," Will mused, scanning the ash. There were no tracks aside from those of the dragons. The ash itself had only been there a day or so, only enough time for some sticks and leaves to get blown across it, along with some stray spiderwebs.

"This is Marcus's stuffed Climber! He would never leave this Floor without his stuffed Climber! Marcus!" Will clamped down on the air around Maribelle's mouth, flying up to her ear.

"There's something out there killing dragons. We don't know what it is. It would be in our best interest if we found it before it found us," Will whispered.

"Please…stop shouting. Take a lesson from the weaker species on how to stay alive. Understand?" Maribelle nodded. Will released her muzzle, only for her to give a loud gasp.

"C-could this be related to the Devourer of Worlds?" She asked.

"The what?" Will asked, frowning.

"A few days after you left, there was a Floor-wide announcement that a new raid boss had appeared, called The Devourer of Worlds. You think it could be related?" Will dragged his hand down his face. From his studies with Ghoul, he knew that correlation did not equal causation, but…come on!

"Is that the only change in the last month?" Will asked.

"Pretty much. Some of the boys said they felt like something was watching them, but you know how boys are, with their flights of fancy." She sniffed haughtily.

"Did they report feeling watched before or after the announcement about the raid boss?" Will asked.

"Ummmm…"

"Mother can remember her age to the second, and you can't remember the order of events?" Will demanded.

"I'm sorry, it's just when boys are talking it doesn't…stick in my head." Maribelle gave a sheepish shrug.

"Allow me." Loth said, holding out her palm. A wasp the size of a horse manifested and leapt forward, giving Maribelle's arm a wicked pinch that would've cut a human in half.

"Ow!" Maribelle whispered, rubbing her arm as the wasp dissolved into miasma.

"Let's visit Carrie's Stronghold and see if they know anything." Will said.

"Why? They were completely useless last time."

"Did you approach them like you did with me?" Will asked.

"…" Will took her silence as a 'yes'.