Chapter 13-367: The Dragon Queen (2/2)
“You will know shortly,” was the reply, and Syasstrar swore she could hear a score of voices she knew in those words, as her hand was inserted into that open mouth...
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Legion turned around as their wings rippled out, getting larger and more draconic, new burning Runes forming on them, while new bands of scales the guards watching were quite familiar with rose here and there on their skin.
“My darlings,” they said in a Voice of voices that raged in the blood and could not be denied, “Come to me. All of you. And bring your women and your daughters and your wealth with you.”
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“Ahem.”
The deer-like woman’s sprint towards the new wall halted abruptly as I came down in front of her, hooved feet skidding to a halt so quickly she tore a trail in the tough grass here.
Her dark eyes went lambent, and narrowed into the slits of a dragon, balefire seething behind them.
“You’re too slow. Fly.” I flicked my finger, and the Flight spell washed over her before she could inhale and breathe ineffectually on me.
She staggered as I stepped aside, staring at me. Then black dragon’s wings of thematic size erupted from her softly furred back, and without looking back, they beat once and sent her soaring into the sky with great speed for the kingdom of her Dragon Queen.
I watched the Dragonbound Warlock vanish quickly into the distance, as did several spotters on duty on the new wall. They enjoyed the new vantage and devoted seats for sentries, too.
“Don’t worry about the alarm,” I told them from hundreds of yards away. “She won’t be coming back.”
And not just because she’d blown her disguise.
I turned around to give word that the Old Steed and I would be starting our Lived-Line trip towards the North Pole, but we would Teleport back in twelve hours, and we would be going to pay the Dragon Queen a final visit. My Warlock associate would meet with anyone who wanted to become a Landbound at that time...
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I kept to the seas, hills, mountains, and open plains as much as I could, because the large forests really slowed things down. When you are traveling at speed, mile-high trees without roads are just massive obstructions in your way slowing you down.
Pass Through Natural Terrain and Treeslipping saved my bacon, combining to allow the Old Steed to flow through the forest as easily as if the trees were not there, enabling me to get over two thousand miles of travel in before Legion indicated they were done in the distance.
The Old Steed had pathed his own Lived-Line towards the forest, so I diverted onto that, and with very precise directions from Legion, quickly made a beeline through the forest towards their location, the flaming unnaturalness of my mount easily warning off everything in our path that might have a notion of messing with us.
The Dragon Queen’s kingdom had naturally consisted of multiple tree villages, outposts, and settlements, spread through the forest to maximize the area hunted, keep watch for enemies, and be bases for raids on neighboring territories.
They were all empty, as my Commune with Nature verified completely. None of the settlements had their own Place Spirits except the central one, which was rapidly fading away as the reason for its existence was gone.
We rose up from the ground to the entry of the carved audience hall, noting that the wood was growing with tremendous speed as a convenient Forestbound was fast-growing the outside of it here.
The statues inside of the Dragon Queen had all been torn apart by great force, ripped, shattered, and tossed outside.
Over the floor was scattered a bloody fortune, literally, in precious metal coins, crude jewelry, poor-quality magical Weapons and Armor, rare stones and crystals, gourds of Potions, and scattered racks and tubes of scrolls and records and things.
That was why I was here. I flicked up the Mass Disks, and Einz swiftly got to piling things up, a Telekinesis spell for Clavus getting him into the task, too. Arcs of coins began to land on the many Disks, other objects scattered around were retrieved and stacked up more neatly.
It took several minutes to stack up and arrange it all, and while there was a bunch of it, it didn’t hit the limit of my Disks at all. I headed to the back of the Hall, where the Dragon Queen had entertained herself, and which was now misting white with the amount of vivus poured into the blood-drenched wood there.
Legion was out on the balcony/branch outside there, standing there looking at nothing, while volumes of Wrath poured down their legs into the tree underneath them. As the Old Steed withdrew from the hall behind us, Disks in tow, I heard the wood began to crack and groan as the tree began to grow into and consume it behind us.
The ram-head lilitu horns had gained an ornamental frill behind them of spikes, burning golden-red energy visible at their seams. The black scales looked more like some sort of fetish armor than anything serious, although the slowly moving tail with its new crest and scales looked much more dangerous, particularly the burning tip of the stinger at the end.
And, ho boy, was I feeling some strength vibes off them.