Tatyana pulled the hat from her head, tilted forward, and let the little soot elemental tumble down onto her outstretched palm. It gazed up at her impassively while she dusted off her head, having been given no instruction by its blood-bound owner. No doubt it would try snooping around her abode the moment that he remembered he’d given it to her.

  She carefully set it down on her desk after a wide swipe of her hand cleared it of documents covered in scribbles and playful, pointless glyphs. The shrill cry of shattering glass and strange scent of long-expired liquid threatened to bring the pangs of an ache to her head, and a sigh to her lips, but she focused on the little creature sitting in the center of her desk regardless, slowly tracing a circle around it with her ruby-ink pen. There was no need for theatrics when there was nobody to witness her craft. The simplest of measures would suffice to sabotage.

  And sabotaging something crafted by the arcane equivalent of a toddler was trivial for her. There was no chance Cedric would ever realize that she had blinded his watchdog with illusions. It was a bit of a shame though. The Vampires had concocted quite the cute little familiars out of nothing more than soot and shadow. If she dressed it up in a little suit, it could serve as a tiny doll butler, perhaps.

  She didn’t even bother with glyphs or other such crutches, the circle would be enough. With a snap of her finger, the critter was forever blinded to the true shape of her atelier.

  “Sorry bossman, looks like you missed your chance.”

  With the miniature wrinkle dealt with, she peered out the window—that was actually a long-distance projection—at the eternal rain falling around the outside entrance to her tucked-away home, before getting up and whisking her finger. The glass that’d fallen and shattered drifted back up onto the table and reassembled into the small container, as though she’d pushed it off the desk but in reverse. Flicking her finger in the opposite direction, a sponge drifted over from the kitchenette and soaked up the mystery liquid and pungent scent alike.

  Tossing her garments off, she let her magic carry them onto the antiquated washing machine sitting off to one side of the chaotic living space. At the same time, Tatyana beckoned to the fluffy cotton robe laying across her sofa, which leapt up into her arms and wrapped itself around her, the chill of long-untouched clothing causing a shiver to run through her.

  “Would’ve been nice to come back sooner, but I at least have to keep up appearances. Speaking of, I should write up a report soon… Wouldn’t do to get audited. But I don’t waaannaaa… I wonder how my little dolly is doing, maybe I'll check on him first…”

  Talking and whining to herself to stave off the loneliness—or perhaps because she had long, long ago fallen to some manner of eccentricity one might call “madness”—Tatyana flopped onto the sofa and reached forward to strain her arm for the remote. As her perpetual curse demanded, the device flopped down onto the ground rather than into her grasp, earning a sigh from her lips as she let her body fall limp.

  “What am I even doing?” she sighed laboriously as she beckoned with her fingers, drawing the remote up into her palm to turn on the television with.

  The display hummed to life, showing a projection of Traskia. It was a sunny day in the far-away royal capital. The streets were lively, and people walked about going from place to place on their little tasks. Some even looked like they were ready to have a proper adventure—in contrast to the groups of eld that she had traipsed about with on occasion.

  “It’s too bad they died…” Her thoughts wandered back to the most recent batch, led by one Mizar who’d “conveniently” been graced with a sword by the Church that had “conveniently” uncovered it from a ruin. “Wonder if I should’ve left the Priest with them… mm, might’ve made things too easy though.”

  Setting up a double K.O. like that was a tricky thing, and this time she had failed. The sitting Exaltare was an obvious threat. She was actually willful and saw the bigger picture, rather than blinded by her lineage’s borderline incestuous obsession with clinging to their power and holdings. She even had a daughter! Somehow! Tatyana cursed her carelessness with the entire Lilith situation once again. She really should have paid closer attention to how and where they even managed to continue the Aphtangloa bloodline after she disappeared. Not to mention the red flag that her disappearance was in the first place. True Vampires didn’t just up and vanish into the ether like that.

  If the Aphtangloa family could even still be called such, she mumbled, staring up toward the ceiling. At least the Humans had the decency to popularize the most recent pick, that certainly saved me a lot of trouble.

  But she still had to be careful with how far she pushed things using him. She couldn’t let the Humans here get too far ahead either, after all. Nothing like adding extra plates to spin… even if things had mostly stabilized after her predecessor set the stage for her—after an admittedly scary breaking-in period. They almost had to scrap everything, and what a waste that would have been! Of course, there was always the risk things would end up right back where they started, if Tatyana screwed up.

  That was why she made an -ade from the lemons she’d accidentally wrought. King Mizar was exactly the sort of aide she needed to maintain the balance of powers that be.

  “Though that’ll only last so long as the burgeoning civilizations don’t step up or step in to toss their own fuel onto the fire,” she sighed to nobody, resting her arm over her eyes to block out the soft lighting that suffused her workshop. She was, of course, pushing the Humans against their original teachings and toward an alliance, which would immediately jeopardize that. She’d have to crush them back down after the fact, somehow. Ideally the Vampires would do all that for her, after having their numbers thinned out and rulers exposed…

  “But can I really keep everything under control? I’m almost terrified that I didn’t find any responses to my reports waiting in the mail… How much longer until they find out I’ve been lying and—”

  Tatyana sat bolt upright, slapping her hand and the remote against her cheek. She didn’t want to give up on this world. And doomspiraling wouldn’t get her anywhere, she was just tired.

  Plus, I need to be careful what I say out loud now…

  Her eyes shot over to the desk, where the little soot elemental sat and stared forward blankly, still waiting for instructions. It was one thing to trick its eyes to see what wasn’t there, but it’d be a trickier thing to hide her careless slips of the tongue. Not something she wanted to bother with.

  She instead beckoned it over with her finger, though rather than magic it simply obeyed her command and waddled forward, flopping off the desk and shuffling over to sit in front of the sofa. She scooped it up into her hands and held it over her head, a wan smile on her face.

  “Why wouldn’t I grow attached? I want to see these people succeed too. Or at least, I want them to thrive for as long as they possibly can…”

  They deserved every bit of happiness they had eked out.

  Hugging the little fluffy homunculus to her chest, Tatyana rolled back onto her side and rested her head on the sofa pillow, changing the channel to another scene elsewhere in the Kingdom, where a one-armed bear of a man with great horns and dangling chimes was talking tepidly to a little Human…

  ＊　＊　＊

  “I thought we were past this already,” Boralus huffed, shifting and fidgeting with the cloak of now-green scales over his shoulder awkwardly.

  “Wh-Why in the world would we let a monster visit the Capital?!”

  The Human, in a shiny metal suit that sparkled in the sun, with a great numeral III emblazoned in gold on his shoulder, had run up to him with sword drawn when the local farmhands ran off in terror as he approached.

  Boralus grumbled to himself about the Sylvan obsession with “observing things from a distance” when having an ambassador at his side would have made this far easier.

  “Look, I’m here on a mission from the Dragon to speak with King Mizar about a coalition against the Vampires. If you want my sword as proof of a peace-accord, then I’m fine handing it over. I’ve no need for self-protection when being escorted through safe lands anyways.”

  Before the Human could open his mouth to speak, a shout carried through the street, the sound of discordant footsteps rushing along the dirt and scattered cobblestone road. Three other Humans, in a random assortment of clothing that barely could be considered matching thanks to the unified red and yellow color scheme, came charging at him with their weapons raised. One held a staff like his clan’s Invoker, another held a sword that rivaled Boralus’s own in size, and the third had a shield and small rod.

  “Get out of the way, Sir Knight, we’ll handle the beast! This is what the Solar Blazes was founded for!”

  “What—”

  The Human Invoker didn’t bother waiting to assess the situation before conjuring and hurling a ball of golden fire in Boralus’s direction.

  The Grandwood’s eyes widened in shock, but he was always prepared to defend himself. And consequently, he reacted quicker than the guard whose back was facing the oncoming ball of flame. He put a large hand on the man’s pauldron and threw him to the ground, pivoting to face the sparkling dragonscale cloak towards the blast. The heat still washed over him, lightly singing his fur as the mystical scales dissipated the blast harmlessly.

  The greatsword user closed the gap in the meantime, swinging the blade that looked unwieldy in her hands. They had good coordination, even if they were… overeager.

  Boralus drew his own jagged blade, carved from the spine of a Mielwyrm, and deftly blocked the downward swing backhanded as he pivoted forward. He hooked the assailant’s weapon in the tooth of his blade and pulled, wrenching it out of her grasp. Finally as the coup de grace, he put the flat of the blade on her exposed shoulder, the chill of steel-like bone causing a shiver to run through her.

  “Stand down, child. I’m not here for a—”

  “Miriam!!”

  The third member finally caught up, tackling Miriam out of the way and raising their black iron rod to blast a ray of sunlight into Boralus’s eyes, causing him to wince a step back and shield his eyes with his arm.

  “Now, Vernon!”

  “Wait, I don’t have another helio blast ready! And it’s got some kind of enchanted cloak.”

  The moment Boralus’s vision returned, he growled and planted his sword into the ground in front of him, shattering the ill-maintained cobblestone road in the process, “Would you all take half a second and BREATHE?!”

  The last word reverberated against the glass of the surrounding wooden structures, the silence in its wake stunning all four Humans in the alleyway as nervous eyes peered from the corners and windows. The first to speak was the shieldbearer, who wore a simple tunic over his smooth pink skin and had only the shield as his armor. …In fact, that was the only piece of defensive equipment across the entire group—setting aside the knight that had already been present.

  “Let us compose ourselves, Solar Blazes! We may have been overzealous in our venture to save the populace.”

  “Ya think?” Boralus snorted dismissively.

  “What? But… Look at the size of it!”

  Walking up cautiously was the darker-hued Invoker. Though he wore a red robe, the hood was pulled down to expose his dark black hair, which was neatly and tidily cut and slicked down like he produced as much oil as waterfowl. More strange was the complete lack of any sort of horn on his head. Even Fangchaser Invokers at least had monohorns! Though they obviously weren’t nearly as impressive as even a normal Grandwood’s antlers.

  “Citizens, please. I’m already handling the matter,” the knight replied after finally getting back to his feet and dusting off his armor. “Stand down and consider this a warning. Next time I’ll have to take you to the jail for throwing around magic and swinging swords in the street.”

  “We’re licensed adventurers! We have the King’s man-date and everything,” shot back the heavily-tanned woman. She had blonde hair tied into a tight bun, and wore what appeared to be intentionally ripped leathers, exposing her shoulder and midriff and thighs.

  As the Human Invoker grunted while lifting her sword and dragging it over through the dirt, the shieldbearer sighed.

  “That doesn’t mean we can interfere in official government business unless it’s an emergency, Miriam. Our deepest apologies, Sir Knight. We thought you were being assaulted by a towering monster.”

  “My name is Boralus.”

  “No no, we were just discussing things. Admittedly I was trying to turn him away because of the potential for just such a misunderstanding!”

  “Actually, you were trying to shoo me off because, and I quote, ‘Wh-Why in the world would we ever let a monster visit the Capital?!’ End quote.”

  “It’s a fair point, though,” the shieldbearer mumbled.

  “There’s no chance we would ever let a monster approach the heart of Dauwen.”

  “But wait,” Miriam folded her arms, ignoring Vernon as he tried to offer her back her blade. “The King has personally spoken with the Geolle Iconoclasts. Sure they may look and act funny, but they’re no monsters at all!”

  That got Boralus’s attention, his mood rising up from the trenches as he looked down at the woman. “You’ve spoken with the Underdwellers?”

  “Dunno about any fancy name like that, but you can bet your sweet bumpkis! Even got my sword custom-forged by them!” She grabbed the handle out of Vernon’s hands and hefted it straight up vertically, pointing the tip toward the sun. The faint blue glow of a glyph on the side of it flickered before vanishing, and she slung it over her back once more.

  “With my money,” Vernon complained.

  “Technically your father’s, which you absconded with because he didn’t want you to run off and—”

  “Okayyyy enough of that,” Vernon quickly cut over the shieldbearer, turning to Boralus, “You said your name was Boralus, good ser beast?”

  “Grandwood. Not a beast.” He puffed his chest out proudly.

  Miriam turned to the shieldbearer, “What’s that?”

  “Never heard of it before. Perhaps a class of monster?”

  “They’re plainsfolk,” the knight explained with a sigh. Suddenly, Boralus began to empathize with him, if he had to deal with this sort all the time. “Plainstriders, we call em. Grandwood is a uh… subcategory, I guess.”

  “There are many races that share the lands of Shiloam,” Boralus nodded in agreement.

  “You ever hear about them, rich boy?” Miriam turned back to her other companion.

  In response, Vernon rolled his eyes. “Yes, of course I have. They live in the vast expanses between here and the Vampires’ homeland in the East. They’ve been caught in the center of countless wars as a result.”

  “Huh… Did you know all that, Douglas?” Imposing and toned as she might have looked for a Human, she was like a baby bird when looking between her two companions.

  “Only the name Plainstrider. The Church teaches us to look inward and above, not to the foreign agents plaguing our world,” the shieldbearer responded.

  “…Right then, where were we?” Boralus ripped his sword back out of the ground, wiped the dirt off the sides of it, and shoved it back in its sheath at his hip. He turned to the knight as he unfastened the entire thing from his belt, holding it forward. “I stand by my word. Lead me to the capital for an audience with His Majesty and I hold no qualms of being unarmed. I’ve no interest in picking fights.”

  “I stand by my word, Boralus Grandwood. I will not endanger the safety of our citizens, nor am I even allowed to leave my station here.”

  “Then at least let me pass.”

  “If I may,” Vernon cut in between the two, flashing his pearly-white incisors. “As amends for our unnecessary assault, permit our party to act as chaperone guiding you to the capital, and to ensure that this incident isn’t tragically repeated elsewhere.”

  “I can’t permit you to lead a—”

  “Ah ah ah~” Miriam waggled her finger, “don’t forget, we have immumity! Meaning we have every right to do as we please so long as it doesn’t interfere with your business. And let’s be honest, if you shoo him off, we could just happen across him again and start escorting him around the town anyways.”

  In response, the knight let out an exhausted sigh and rubbed his brow with his gloved hand. “Just… don’t parade him through the middle of the streets without permission.”

  “I’d rather not be paraded at all.”

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  Once the situation had calmed somewhat, and the knight left to go back to his guard post, the three Humans began leading Boralus around the outskirts of the town. There was brief talk of getting him a cloak, but it was decided that would only make him look more imposing—especially if they found something that could accommodate his horns.

  Instead, they agreed to simply avoid populated areas as much as they could, which he was more than fine with. So long as Boralus could speak with the Human King, he didn’t care how he got there or what the people in the Kingdom thought of him on a personal level. So long as he could fulfill the Dragon’s prophecy and save his people from the encroaching horror that was foretold, he didn’t even care if he was dubbed Quisling.

  Though, the thought still caused his shoulder stump to ache, and he clutched at his dragonscale cloak while grunting in mild distress.

  “You okay there, big dude?” asked Miriam.

  “Fine. Just an ache that I’ve yet to grow accustomed to.”

  “It’s a luxurious cloak you wear,” Vernon nodded, “and looks new, too. I can’t tell what sort of creature it’s made from, no Wyvern I’ve seen has scales that potent. Almost like its made from gravebeetle shells.”

  Douglas shot his companion a suspicious look “How do you know what gravebeetles look like, Vernon?”

  “From my family estate’s books! And I’ve seen drakehide before, too. It’s more coarse and leathery, and less shiny and… Green.”

  “This was the prize for my insolence, along with the loss of my arm,” Boralus puffed his chest out proudly. “I know of scarce few that have met with the Dragon once, and only one who has seen Her twice!”

  All three of the Humans’ eyes lit up at once.

  “You’ve seen a Dragon?” “Dragons are real?” “That cloak is dragonscale?!”

  Their bewilderment and excitement only served to further inflate his ego.

  “Indeed. Though it is separated from Her body, the scales still shimmer and change color with the season.”

  “That’s incredible! What’s she like? Does she breathe fire? You mentioned a tail, what about horns? Wings? Does she have a mate? How many dragons do you know about?” Vernon’s blue eyes twinkled with excitement as he bombarded Boralus with questions.

  While it wasn’t the first time he’d been treated with such excitement, he wasn’t sure where to begin with the Human’s attitude. It was hardly deferential, which even the Sylphs were better about when it came to the Dragon.

  Miriam bonked the back of his head with her gauntleted fist. “Lay off, dude. You’re bothering him.”

  Given that they didn’t even recognize him for what he was, Boralus realized he would have to be extra patient with the Humans, and expand their awareness of the wider world. It seemed the Vampires truly had them scared into a corner, and stripped them of knowledge.

  “The Dragon is an object of worship to us Plainstriders, not a wild beast. She lives atop the Great Hollow, and does not even deign to show Herself to the Anfamiliktos unless She wishes it. She can also be… difficult. And knows everything that happens. So yes, even your lack of reverence. Be careful if you ever cross paths.”

  “She sounds quite similar to the Goddess, then,” the shieldbearer Douglas hummed. “Almost like a pagan goddess… Except you said you actually encountered her. And, well, that cloak makes it fairly obvious. It’s certainly no normal magic item.”

  “Hmm… how about this: As I’m not offering you three anything for bringing me to your king, and by rights of hospitality I should, I will offer each of you a single scale of this cloak as payment. Perhaps She foresaw this, and that is why I was permitted to take Her tail at all…”

  “You what.”

  “Yes! Absolutely!”

  “Well, our leader seems to think that’s a fair deal, so yeah sure. Though be sure to put a good word in for us with the King too when you meet him, eh?”

  “Actually… how are we even going to get him to King Mizar? I mean, the guy is a lauded hero and Champion of the Goddess, why’d he meet with some random uh… bear-dude? I know he’s nice, but…”

  “Now now, Miriam. Sir Boralus here has already stated he’s on a diplomatic mission on behalf of his people. Considering the recent trend with the Geolle Iconoclasts, I believe that his Divine Dragon may have foreseen the way things would turn and tasked him with this specifically because he would pave way for further alliances. In that sense, we could become the first adventuring party to be ambassadors of the Kingdom itself!”

  “Such words are heresy according to Church doctrine, Vernon,” Douglas sighed.

  “Yeah and you left the Church because you complained about their dogma to the bishop!”

  “I did not complain. I simply asked him why and how the Church determined what matters are considered taboo.”

  “Uh-huh. Like how I told my uncle I was going out for milk,” Miriam quipped back, “and you didn’t ‘leave,’ either. You said to me you were kicked out the door, you said!”

  “And you were the one who called off our attack, saying that Boralus wasn’t a monster,” Vernon piled on.

  “That’s… Listen, the Geolle made me realize that there is more to belief than just what some person quotes from a book.”

  Boralus scratched his chin with a finger, a small huff of amusement escaping his lips. It felt almost identical to any given argument at the festival each harvest season. Only much more hairless. If he imagined grayer, leathery skin on the shieldbearer, and fluffy ears on the warrior, they’d almost be a perfect fit for a Lockhorn or Fangchaser.

  Thinking to himself that if they could set aside their differences with each other, they could just as easily do so with the humans, Boralus followed the trio of adventurers with a smile on his face and renewed hope.

  Getting the Sylvan Queen to sign on after recruiting the Humans to his cause would be a far easier task… Perhaps that is why she decided upon a wait-and-see approach, to let him gauge whether or not he was on a fool’s errand.

  Perhaps this whole alliance business would work out after all.