POV Tanya:
A young woman in a cloak with a scarf wrapped around her face slowly ascended up a long spiral staircase, her nervous steps resounding through the empty black corridors.𝒪𝓥xt.𝑶
Everything around her was dark, but her red glowing reverse-slitted eyes saw like during daylight. She was visibly nervous, knowing that her master would likely not react positively to her suggestion. She could already imagine the dragon’s anger.
“Graaa!” a growl came from the darkness, making her slightly jump up.
A pitch-black wolf-shaped monster walked out from behind a corner, an unnaturally red magma glowing from cracks in its stone-hard skin. It audibly sniffed, smelling the young woman while growling with its sharp teeth fully shown.
In an instant, its aggressivity subsided. It immediately closed its mouth filled with sharp teeth as it recognized the smell of its master emitting from her, marking her as its fellow minion.
“Ahh, good dog?” she carefully stepped aside, walking around the wolf monster while keeping her eyes on it. She refused to let her guard down as she could easily imagine the monster ripping her apart like with its red glowing claws.
Finally, when she got far enough from the monster, she speeded up her steps as she kept ascending higher and higher, her nervousness growing together with the air temperature.
Finally, she saw an opening in the ceiling with light passing through. She deeply breathed in and out to calm her nerves and made the final step, entering the rooftop.
She couldn’t see anything except the dark smoke and lights, but she fell to her knees without any hesitation, facing her master, that was likely hiding deep within the smoke.
“You draconic Highness, please help me. I am in trouble.” Her only hope once again was the dragon before her.
She even felt terrible knowing how much trouble she brought last time to her master after she asked them for help in getting her title. And now she was at risk of losing that title.
The dragon remained quiet, only the smoke slightly swirling and moving around. She decided to continue, “Your Highness, some nobles are scheming against me. They will take my title away if I don’t prove I am strong enough to hold it. Sadly I am not.”
All the smoke moved away in a split second, revealing the dragon that was even more majestic than before. Tanya gawked at how her master had changed.
They were even more prominent than before, with beautiful red ruby-like crystals decorating their body. The faint blue light radiated out of the cracks in shiny, partially metallic armour covering them.
A terrifying aura pushed against her body, making her black hair with a few red strands wave behind her head. The two reptilians’ eyes burned with anger. The sound of something grinding against a stone was coming from the smoke.
The dragon reacted violently, just as she expected. Luckily, their anger wasn’t focused on her.
A cold voice boomed with the strong and hot wind gushing out of the gaping mouth, sending Tanya’s scarf flying down from the tower, “Who dares to try and weaken my control over my territory?”
This was what precisely she feared. She couldn’t afford her master going to murder some high nobles. But as someone who drank dragon blood, she more than understood the reasonings of dragons.
‘I serve my master, and trying to take my title away is, by extension, the same as taking it from my master.’
She immediately pleaded, her eyes slightly glowing as she put her hand forwards in an attempt to soothe the dragon.
“Your Highness, please! There is no need to…”
“No, you are wrong, my minion! If we don’t show them our fury, they will just keep throwing twigs under our feet! The humans will only learn from violence and pain.”
She didn’t even get a chance to respond before the dragon continued, his two eyes bearing immense pressure in their gaze.
“Originally, I wanted to move slower, but it looks like I will have to move faster. Try to lure the local count out of his capital… and I will turn him to our side.”
Tanya turned even more scared, feeling like her master had gone insane, ‘Why are they wanting to risk so much when they can just keep quietly growing.’
However, there was no way that she would dare to disagree with the dragon that could turn her and her whole castle into cinders with one sneeze, “Yes, master, but there is no need form to lure him out. The count likes to hunt monsters in a cursed swamp. You can ambush him during one of his hunts.”
The dragon’s eyes dangerously glinted, making Tanya smile, imagining the poor old count getting the shock of his life, “You Highness, I will inform you the moment that the count leaves for one of his hunting trips.”
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon flapped his wings, rising up towards the sky, leaving his still confused minion on the roof. He was no longer so weak that he needed to exist in fear of some small and weak country in a developing part of Lorenia.
‘At the very least, I can easily escape, and with my plan of slowly building my powers hidden deep within the mountains, I will always have a safe haven.’
Still, he wasn’t just planning to take it over with force, as that would be too eye-catchy. Instead, he would slowly erode it from within by slowly building his influence and replacing all critical figures with his puppet dragonkins.
There was still the quest for the dragon god that he needed to do, but he had no idea where to even start, so he needed much more resources.
‘It is like seeking a needle in a haystack. But with a whole kingdom full of humans working for me, it should be possible.’ he had more options. However, he felt that taking over the kingdom would save him trouble down the way, ‘Sooner or later, I would get into conflict with some pesky nobles, so it will be better if I take the initiative before players return.’
He flapped his wings, flying north, heading back towards the white peaks on the horizon.
‘It is finally time to meet with that wyrm again. Hopefully, I can get some answers or maybe even something better.’