Dungeon Master 6

by Eric Vall

  “But…I-I have to go alone?” the redhead squeaked as she glanced around at her sisters.

  “No, we will split evenly, two will go with you, and two will stay with me. I will not force you to decide who is going with whom, so I will choose,” I informed them in an even, calm tone, and Rana nodded along softly. “And I will be with you.”

  “How?” all of my women echoed together with confused faces.

  “I created this avatar, didn’t I?” I asked as I gestured to the body my presence resided in. “I can create another, and it will travel along with you. I will switch between the two from time to time or whenever you need assistance, just call my name, and I will be there with you.”

  “Who will be going with you? And…um, will there be opportunities to be…alone with you during the trip?” Carmedy asked as she blushed and shyly avoided my gaze.

  “Don’t worry, Carmedy; you’ll get your opportunity to make ghost noises with Master.” Rana chuckled as she elbowed the alchemist.

  “Ghost noises?” Haruhi asked with a scrunched-up nose. “What on earth is that?”

  “Oh-ho-ho, Haruhi, honey, do I have some stories to tell you,” the redhead snickered as she wrapped an arm around the librarian’s shoulders and brought her in close.

  “Please do not tell anyone else that story,” Morrigan uttered in her cold, emotionless tone. “It is embarrassing enough to bring it up, but to tell it to Haruhi would make it even worse.”

  “Yeah, it’s not even funny anymore,” Carmedy grumbled as she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s embarrassing, stop teasing me.”

  “Oh, come on, guys. Master and Haruhi were makin’ some ghost noises on the beach the other night.” The redhead laughed, and Haruhi stiffened from beside her.

  “Oh,” the sage muttered in a mortified voice. “I think I know what ghost noises are now.”

  “How do you even know that?” the high queen asked in a skeptical voice.

  “When we went out to dinner the other night, the two of them disappeared, remember?” the redhead nodded. “Well, I thought maybe they had snuck off to have a midnight swim or something, and I snuck up on them and…uh, it looked like swimming was the last thing on their minds.”

  I cleared my throat meaningfully, and Haruhi gave me a grateful look through her brightly burning red cheeks. My other minions turned their attention back to me as I began to speak again.

  “Back to the plan, please. Rana, you will take Carmedy and Annalise with you,” I instructed them, and the feline and swordswoman instinctively moved closer to the fox at my command. “I will take Morrigan and Haruhi with me.”

  “And we’ll have your new avatar with us?” Annalise asked in her raspy voice. “Will we have to drag it around behind us as we did in the Liebe’s dungeon?”

  “That was a bit weird but pretty funny, honestly.” Rana chuckled, and the rest of my women nodded.

  “No, I will place a consciousness in this proxy; it will be able to walk and aid you on your journey,” I stated then waited for more questions to come like they usually did.

  “How? I mean, it’s pretty cool that you can do that, but how?” the swordswoman asked in a confused tone.

  “Easy, soul transferal given to me by the Dama,” I explained to them. “I will place one of the Shadow Slaves into the empty avatar and command it to help you. When I need to transfer into the body, the Shadow Slave will simply move out of the avatar to make room for me.”

  My minions nodded and went silent as they ran over the plan in their heads. Rana scrubbed at her cheeks as she grinned and stared down at the ground. The fox was emotional, but from the way her red tail swished out behind her, I knew she was excited. Annalise reached around Carmedy and gave the redhead’s shoulder a tight squeeze of encouragement.

  “I get to see my family again,” the fox choked up again, but the smile remained on her lips. “I get to see my mom and my siblings. I can tell them all about the Kitsune and what she told me. Maybe one day, we could journey there and see all the Kitsune people. When I think about it, it just makes me so happy…”

  “Rana,” I started as I stepped forward and held out my hands to her. “This is my gift to you. The gift of freedom. You no longer have Tuzakeur breathing down your neck to find the items, that man is gone, and the only thing left to do is find your family.”

  “How will we get there?” Rana asked in a concerned tone as she looked out over the sky where she’d seen the lights. “It’s not like we can use the lights like a map when they’re up in the sky…”

  The Qianlong slunk up behind us and stood directly behind the fox. Heijing’s icy blue eyes were intent on Rana for a moment before her pale lips moved to speak.

  “I may be able to help,” the Qianlong stated. “I am a dragon.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was surprised that the Qianlong offered us her help. The elusive creature had made it clear to us that we were intruding on her land, but during our time there, it seemed that her attitude towards us changed. Heijing deemed me fit to receive the gifts of the Qianlong, both the rod and the cryokinetic power she’d received from her mother. But it seemed that the dragon was simply lonely. Her people had died off quickly once humans and catkins took over the islands. The Akalong tribe was long gone after they’d merged with the Qianlong’s in a last-ditch effort to save their species. Heijing was the last living Canartian dragon left on earth.

  “Why? Why do you want to help us?” Annalise asked skeptically, and the Qianlong icy blue eyes cut into the high queen for a moment.

  “Is it a crime to wish for something more than to rot in the temple of my dead people? This is my last chance to leave this place and make a home for myself somewhere else,” Heijing explained in her cold voice. “I am over seven hundred years old, though that may seem like a baffling age, I’ve just reached my sexual maturity as a dragon. It is time for me to decide if I should fully immerse myself in the human world and take a husband or if I should hole myself away here.”

  “Really? You can do that?” Carmedy asked in a hushed tone, and Heijing nodded softly. “You can just find a human, get married, and have babies?”

  “Yes, though the bloodline of the Qianlong will be tainted, and my offspring wouldn’t be able to transform, but it is still possible,” The Qianlong told us, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I have been alone for a very long time; I can barely remember the faces of my ancestors, even my parents. I would like to go with you and aid you along your journey to find your family. I understand the agony that you feel being away from them. The rod and the cryokinetic power I gave to your Master are my legacy, and if I am to leave this place, I would like to stay with my legacy.”

  “Master?” Rana asked as she turned towards me with a hopeful smile. “Can she come with us?”

  I towered over the Qianlong and stared into her smooth, innocent looking face. Heijing was tiny, even smaller than either Carmedy or Haruhi. She looked like a doll with porcelain skin, but her eyes were alive and sharp in their sockets with an almost animalistic intelligence. Heijing blinked up at me slowly and suddenly, her stoic expression softened, and she smiled. Though I already knew that the Qianlong was dangerous and able to handle herself in any battle situation, there wasn’t much else we knew about her.

  I listened to all of her thoughts, and from the way she looked at me, she could feel my prying hands in her mind. Like I’d thought before, the Qianlong had no ill will against us, and her intentions were true with what she told Carmedy. The dragon only wanted to help and escape the place that held her prisoner for most of her life. Heijing had no ulterior motives towards us, and I nodded once as I held out a gloved hand to her. The dragon examined it for a moment as she drew in a large breath, then placed her tiny hand in mine.

  A strange feeling passed through my body as I stared down at her small hand, it looked delicate and breakable like the surface would crack if I touched her with too much pressure. As I said before, the Qianlong could hold her ow
n amongst our party, but I wanted to protect her as I did with my women. Heijing’s icy blue eyes were clear and sparkling like the rippling surface of the ocean. I couldn’t deny that she was beautiful, and her long blue hair looked like silk and for a moment, I had an urge to reach out and stroke it.

  “You may come with us,” I uttered in a low voice and Heijing bowed her head to me as her eyes fluttered closed.

  “Thank you, I will do my best,” the Qianlong answered as her glittering eyes that entranced me so much opened once more. “I will shoulder the responsibility of protecting your women as if they were my own.”

  “Please do, my women are the only beings I care for in this world,” I told her in a firm voice as I stared down at her, and the Qianlong tilted her head at me curiously. “But allow my women to protect and care for you too, you are the last of your kind and have meaning in this world.”

  Heijing’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then the corners of her lips curled up into a sly smile. I knew what the Qianlong said earlier; she’d reached her sexual maturity and was looking for a mate. I didn’t have to be told I was a handsome man, but there was more to it than that, I was more than a mere mortal, I was a god in every sense of the word. There was no telling what would happen but seeded deep in the back of the Qianlong’s mind; there was hope that something between us would blossom, and that she would be able to bear my children.

  The offspring of a fallen god and a dragon would be powerful indeed.

  “Are we returning to the city first?” Haruhi asked in a soft voice, and I turned away from the dragon to look at the sage. “If we’re going on another journey soon, I’d like to say goodbye to my father properly. My brother should’ve arrived back from the Navy yesterday, but I want to make sure that Pappa won’t be alone while I’m away.”

  “We’re going now?” Heijing asked in her undulating voice that reminded me of the crash of the ocean’s waves. “It can probably be assumed, but I’ve never been to the city below the sanctuary. I’ve seen it from the mountain top, sometimes, when I get lonely, I go there and look down at the tiny silhouettes of people moving about and imagine myself among them.”

  “Then let’s go!” Carmedy cried as she looped her arm into the Qianlong’s.

  The dragon’s thoughts were a jumbled mess, and I had to stop myself from chuckling at her shock. In the Qianlong’s world, when the dragons were still alive and doing fairly well, she was revered as a princess. Heijing was the only child of Guoshe and Anteng, the respective leaders of the Akalong tribe and Qianlong tribe. When the sanctuary bustled with life, people waited on her hand and foot out of respect. If the dragons of Canarta survived, then Heijing would have become the next leader of the combined tribes. Physical touch was alien to her, and affectionate physical contact was more foreign to the princess so the feline holding her like this was certainly something she would have to get used to.

  We headed down the mountain as a group, and the alchemist asked the Qianlong questions the whole way down with Haruhi breaking in every once in a while. The Qianlong didn’t seem averse to the attention, but her stoic expression stayed the same the entire time. Heijing reminded me a lot of Morrigan when I first met the elven woman. She was quiet and didn’t let her emotions tread across her face like the two felines, and it was quite interesting to watch them interact together.

  “How old are you, Heijing?” Haruhi asked as she adjusted her glasses, and the lenses flashed in the bright sunlight.

  “I am exactly seven hundred and eighteen--” the Qianlong stared in her monotone voice as she floated along in between the two cat-girls.

  “No, no, I’m sorry, I meant how old are you in human years?” the sage corrected herself, and the dragon nodded once in understanding.

  “In human years, I am about…nineteen years old.” Heijing stated, and though she was the closest one to me in age, she didn’t look it at all.

  “You’re the baby of the group!” Rana laughed, and the Qianlong looked over to the fox with disinterested eyes.

  “Yes! I’m no longer the youngest!” Carmedy cried happily as she threw her paws into the air and danced around.

  “Logically, that’s untrue…” Heijing protested in her low, husky voice but her protests went ignored as the feline hopped around.

  “If anything, Heijing is the second oldest in our group. I know for sure she’s not as old as Master, but she’s still over seven hundred years old.” Haruhi explained, but she too was ignored by the rejoicing alchemist.

  “So, you’re a princess?” Annalise asked, and Heijing’s icy blue eyes swiveled to the high queen.

  “Technically yes, I was the last heir in the tribes. I didn’t consider myself a princess, but I was treated as such as my mother was in the Akalong tribe.” The dragon answered in an even and calm voice.

  “C-can you tell me more about your mother? Guoshe?” the librarian asked nervously as she played with the hem of her dress. “And your father, what was Anteng like?”

  Heijing blinked, confused for a moment, then her smooth face cleared. The subject of her parents wasn’t touchy or tender, but it was strange to the dragon to have someone ask about her parents. To the Qianlong, they were her parents, only that, but to Haruhi, they were figureheads of a long lost civilization.

  “What would you like to know?” the dragon inquired with a tilt of her head, and Haruhi nearly vibrated with excitement.

  “What were they like? I’ve read about them and heard their story but who were they in real life?” the sage questioned in a soft voice.

  Heijing leaned her head back and looked up at the cornflower blue sky. She blinked softly, and I took notice of how long her eyelashes were. The dragon was stunning like the rest of my minions, and I wished to see her dragon form once again.

  “There is nothing recorded about how my parents were together,” Heijing told us, and when I glanced over my shoulder, I could see traces of Guoshe in her face. “They were from different tribes, and of course, they hated each other at first. My mother, Guoshe, resented her people for handing her over to the Qianlong tribe as if she were a prize to be won. Their initial introduction didn’t go over well, my mother set fire to most of the palace, and it took over a year to rebuild.”

  “Star-crossed lovers!” Carmedy cried in a singsong voice then burst into a fit of giggles.

  “It was a strange occurrence, but there was an uprising in the dwarven community on the mainland east of here, they started to pillage the islands and attempt to take them for their own,” Heijing explained, and Haruhi listened, totally enrapt. “They tried to attack Canarta, and my mother took over the war council. My father, as the leaders of the Qianlong’s, was included in the council and saw a completely different side of Guoshe there. She was precise in her actions and well versed in the ways of battle. He respected her, and from then on, he would only go to her for advice on battle-related topics. They were married, but they lived in separate parts of the palace, but because of the fight against the dwarves, an unlikely friendship blossomed between them.”

  “And then?” Rana asked as she actively avoided looking at the dragon to make it seem like she wasn’t interested, but from the way her tail wagged, I could tell she was.

  “I can’t tell you when my parents fell in love with each other, but it was gradual and over a long span of time. People began to notice though; they were kinder and more considerate of each other. Eventually, my mother moved into the main part of the palace where my father stayed,” Heijing went on as she told the love story of her parents. “They weren’t together then, but it was certainly a change in their attitudes toward each other. The final change came around my mother’s twentieth birthday. Anteng went out into the forest for five nights straight, when he came back, he brought with him ten thousand fireflies in glass jars and strung them up in her room.”

  “What was the meaning of the fireflies?” Haruhi asked in a hushed voice as she clung to Heijing’s every word.

  “It’s silly but shows what
a sweet man my father could be despite his Akalong heritage,” the dragon smiled to herself as she fiddled with the sleeve of her robe. “He told her, ‘ten thousand fireflies for the ten thousand tiny fires she lit in his heart.”

  “Awww!” Carmedy cried as she held her paws tightly to her chest and grinned.

  “He often joked to me when I was a child that he should have given her ten thousand and one fireflies, for the fires in his heart and the fire she set to the palace when she first arrived,” the Qianlong giggled, and it was the first time we’d heard her laugh. “My father confessed his love to her then, on her twentieth birthday. Twelve months later, I was born.”

  “Wait a second, twelve months?” Annalise asked as her brows furrowed. “That’s like an abnormally long time to be pregnant.”

  “Really?” Heijing asked in a surprised tone. “I was born early; most dragon pregnancies go on for thirteen to fourteen months.”

  “Are you serious?” Rana breathed in disbelief.

  “It takes a lot longer to develop a Dragonborn than human babies, we have a dragon form and our human form, that is why it takes almost twice as long as a human pregnancy.”

  “But what were your parents like?” Haruhi pressed again, unsatisfied with the information she’d been given.

  Heijing’s expression never changed as she walked down the trail closer to the city, but she seemed unbothered by the sage’s question as she opened her cherry colored lips to speak again.

  “My mother, true to her Qianlong bloodline was kind, soft-spoken and gentle but being raised by the Akalong, made her short-tempered, sharp-tongued and irritable at times. She was more likely to give you a tongue lashing in a sweet, simpering voice than to flat out scream at you. She never used it on me, but I witnessed her do it to other officials before,” Heijing smiled softly as she remembered her mother fondly. “Guoshe stayed true to her Akalong raising and wore only the yellows and reds of her people even after her and my father fell in love.”