Chapter 15: Chapter 15: The Dragon’s New Diggs

“Hiyah!” That cute shout is accompanied by a spray of blood. A red chicken head goes soaring through the air. A wet thump echoes out as a young elven girl smiles brightly. “Look Vee, I am getting better!” Jane’s enthusiasm makes me want to smile as I watch her swing her shimmering black and red sword around.

“Not bad. Though, your swing is a bit off. You need to work on keeping your force consistent along the arc.” Taking hold of the blood sword with my magic, I guide her arms along the path more smoothly. The chicken’s head going flying like it had, meant her cut was not very clean.

Conjuring another blood chicken, I set my protege to work. The piles of blood in the shape of my most fated enemy are constructs I have been practicing with. At this point they are stronger than the real thing, which makes the fact that Jane can kill one while still without her magic very impressive. With the stupid rain not letting up at all over the last week the stupid birds and snakes had to eventually come out of hiding for food. I managed to snag some Ether and get myself back to a reasonable level a couple days ago thanks to my regular hunts.

FInally having enough Ether, and my snazzy new skill, I can finally make all kinds of things with blood! In fact, I have turned this whole cave into a lovely home. As long as you look past the spooky black blood metal walls, the eerie crimson lightning bottled up and spread across the ceiling, and the numerous bloody magic circles painted on the floor, it’s really cozy. Some blood chisels here and a few explosions there, the home renovation and expansion would put any of those house flipping shows to shame.

I am most fond of the blood plate tiles. Mainly because they are actually quite soft to walk on and sleeping on a hard stone floor was getting annoying. I even have crimson steel and walls set up to cover the entrance to the cave, the name for the metal was decided upon by my new roommate if that was not obvious. The little sword nut also named the softer blood plates I made, calling them wine cushions. Her choice of description is probably to help her think less about the fact that everything in this room is made of my blood.

The “water” bed got a rather disgusted grimace from the girl, but she adjusted quickly. Now she is rather fond of the furniture’s bouncy nature. Jane has been a good kid and a hard worker these last few days. I think we could make a really great team if her magic and skills end up complimenting my own in the future. I made a joke about her being my rider after I become a dragon, something I slightly regret, because she is now obsessed with the idea.

Thanks to the endless rain, I have not had to deal with any adventurers showing up which is nice, no run-ins with Slender Deer also helped me calm down. Now, I am just working on training my own magic while helping Jane practice her sword skills. “Okay! I think that is enough chickens for now. You are being graduated to snakes!”

“Yeah!” She pumps her fist as I announce her progress. I wish I could ruffle her little head without accidentally clawing at her face. Narrowing my eyes I get the feeling that she has built up a bit too much confidence from fighting the chickens, so I decide to make this a learning opportunity. Creating a blood snake, the normal kind and not the giant one that ate me, I send the construct after Jane.

She immediately steps forwards with a good stance and swings down at the snake’s neck while expertly sidestepping from the monster’s jaws.

Slam!

But the snake’s tail flits past her guard and rams her into the wall as her blade barely nicks the creature. “Ugh!” Jane lets out a rather unladylike grunt as she doubles over clutching her stomach. Yep, definitely got overconfident. I halt the snake as I move over to her, giving her just a biiit of time to let the pain sink in before I shower her in [Healing Magic].

A pout forms on her lips as she looks up at me from her position on the floor. “When greeting an unfamiliar enemy, you can’t just go rusing in without a plan or any knowledge of the creature. How they move, their speed, attack patterns, it is all important to know or else… well you just saw what happens. As a certain internet comedian regrets saying: YOLO, you only live once.”

Her pouty looks turns to confusion for a moment. “You know Vee, I have no idea what half those words at the end meant. Stop making references you know I won’t understand!”

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“No. Now tell me, what should you have done?” I feel a smile forming as I tease the kid. Interacting with her feels so real that it is hard to think of her as an NPC. Maybe it is just that we seem to get along well, but I can forget I am in a game sometimes.

Pushing herself off the ground, Jane crosses her arms with her previous pouty look returning. “I should have asked you about the snake beforehand, and then kept my distance to see how fast it moves?”

“Correct. I am glad you are paying attention. Now, as for the snake it-” Just as I am about to explain the details of the snake’s movement patterns, I hear an explosion go off outside my cave. Jane and I share matching raised eyebrows as shouting and grumling come from the same direction. “I’ll go check it out, you stay back just in case.”

Nodding like a good girl, Jane moves to the back of the cave while I meander over to the door. “Okay Vee! Stay safe!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cracking open the door I get a quick look outside through the illusion cast on the crimson steel wall. There, standing in a cloud of mud and debris, I find a certain party that is distinctly missing an idiot wolf boy.

“I thought you said you found them all!”

“They were really well hidden!”

“Those bombs were way too big! My shield got dented from just one! What kind of creature puts this much effort and skill into trapping their home?!”

The sounds of stupidity mix with the rain and I sigh in resignation before getting a better look. It seems they managed to get past quite a few of my chicken powered landmines, though I had some buried and concealed separately along what looked like a clear path for situations like this. Looks like the dwarf’s shield is rather nastily dented now.

I send out an air of Ether with my thoughts carried along it so that they can all hear me at once. “Hey, glad to see the new doorbell is working. Unless you’re selling girl scout cookies, I’m not buying.”

The trio all look around, startled, the voice echoing in their head making it hard to discern the source. Their gazes slowly turn to the hidden cave entrance. “U-Um, is that you? Uh, the monster that we met last time we were here?” It seems the party leader at least has half a brain. “If you are referring to the monster that cooked your idiot friend alive for being well, a colossal idiot. Then yes.”

An awkward tension hangs in the air for a moment before all three of them bow of all things. Their leader speaks rather shakily as she apologizes. “R-Right, sorry about that! He is no longer a part of our party just so you know…”

Honestly, what do these idiots want? “You still have not told me why you are at my door trying to sneak around the protections.”

I hear a muttered “I told you we should have called out before trying to get to the door,” from the dwarf. A mutter that is quickly met with another bow from the leader. “Sorry! But have you seen a young elven girl around here? Brown hair, small chest, hazel eyes?” A pained shout comes from behind me, something about the small chest being an extremely unnecessary detail. Poor girl.

“What about her?” Truthfully, I can already guess where this is going, and it is going to be a pain.

The fox girl takes a moment before deciding to speak, probably deciding whether it is okay to tell everything to a monster. “She went missing and her parents put in a request to bring her back. She is a friend of ours too so we took the job and tracked her with magic. It led us in this direction before cutting off, so we thought maybe…”

Yeah, fucking knew it. My sigh travels heavily across the Ether as I fix the group’s misconception. “Oh, you mean the girl who ran away from home after hearing her parents were planning on selling her off? Yeah, I know her. Didn’t take you for a group of slaving bounty hunters.”

“What?! They were planning to- No! Thats…” As the orange haired fox girl starts to deny my statement I decide to cut to the chase and not waste any more of my valuable time. Time that I could be training my magic or Jane. “I heard it from the girl herself, if you want I can call her out and she can confirm.”

“But, slavery is illegal in Silkfall…”

These people, they need to focus… “Foreign noble. Now, do you want to see Jane? Or would you like to continue ignoring me to babble to yourself and give me an opportunity to test whether I can play fox girl claw machine using my new [Blood Magic]?”

Mutters of acceptance and confusion come out in equal measure, but I figure that is good enough to call out for the kid. “Jane! Come poke your head out to confirm you are safe before I bring these adventurers inside!” Shouting for the little brat, I crouch down as she clambers on top of me and sticks her head out the door.

“Hi.”