1 Dragons and a Show

The darkness slowly lifted as the dragon began to gain altitude and departed the valley. It wasn’t until I was sure that she…he…it—oh, whatever—was gone that I started moving again. I stood, shaking rubble off of me, and had to lean on my staff as a violent wave of coughing overtook me as my body tried to expel the dust from my lungs. Sure, I may have grown up in the caves of the Academy, but crashing a flying castle is going to stir up a bit more dust than even I’m used to.

            “Vier! Aelveran! Ix!” I coughed out. “Elaris! Is everyone alive?”

            I heard more coughing to my right, intermixed with some rather creative colorful metaphors.

            “You idiot, Azrael! Why did you have to go and do tha—” Vier’s rant suddenly cut off. I glanced in his direction, wondering what could possibly get that loudmouth to stop mid-sentence, when I saw it myself.

            The castle had landed directly on top of the Old City, walled off long ago to keep the stuff of Tyranna’s nightmares trapped after the fall of the Empire.

            As for what had risen up since…the newer city was gone. Just gone. Bits of rubble and half standing walls, scorched or still burning as far as the eye could see…everything was smashed until any faint possibility that this had recently been a thriving civilization was completely ludicrous. The mountains we’d crossed earlier in the week were themselves soot-blackened, shattered remnants of their former selves.

            “Stars…” I breathed. All of this to get at…I shook myself, trying to tear away from the horrible magnitude of it all. “Bob.” My voice was still a faint echo of its usual quality. Must have been the shock.

            A tiny robed imp, no more than six inches high, appeared less than two feet in front of my nose. “Yes?” He squeaked.

            “Find the others. Anyone not a known ally, burn first and ask questions later.”

            Bob, ever oblivious to the situation, giggle in delight and made like a tiny comet across the ruins.

            I turned to where I’d heard Vier, and went to help him, my mind still trying to grasp what had happened.

            Ganus was back.

           

            We never did find the bodies of Elaris and Gideon. We never found anyone, or for that matter anything of value. Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t like there was anyone left to use or claim anything.

            There was no point to sticking around, and there was no time in any case. We had to keep moving.

            Just before we headed out, though, I swear I heard a vaguely flamboyant “Whoops!”, immediately followed by the sound of something clattering against the rubble nearby. I looked around, and saw a faintly glowing orb coming to stop on the ground not two feet from us.

            It couldn’t be.

            It was just too easy.

            After years of looking, two in a single… “Vier.”

            He looked over, and I motioned for him to follow me as I picked my way around the rubble to get a proper look at it.

            The fire orb rested on a cracked stone, casing flickering light across it. I glanced back at the bard, the same mix of shock and excitement on my face, I’m sure, as was on his.

            Earth, Air, and Fire. It almost sounded like a bad band name. “How do we go about carrying this one around?”

            (To be filled in more later—the above was not recorded, and I must consult with my fellow players for the rest of this bit.)

            Barsaive. According to Vier, one of the few places that hadn’t been overrun by the Kalaxian Empire. It was also about the only place we’d find a rift into the Faewild. Kalaxia beign what it was now, neither Aelveran nor I would be able to get there from here, despite our fae nature. Without a stronger magical connection, Tyranna wouldn’t be able to help either. Ishtar would also be a consideration, being one of the more magical locations on this continent, but the last I’d heard it had been overrun by demons working to keep Shardaxis’ bloody claws off of it.

            Not the safest place to be.

            “So. How do we get there?” Despite the two years that had passed since I found myself in Dorolla, geography was still not my best subject. That was Vier’s job.

            “It’s a separate continent. We’ll need to find a port city with a ship headed our way.  Farron’s probably our best bet for that.”

            “Wait, why are we going there again?” Aelveran asked.

            With a bizarre amount of patience, Vier explained. “It’s where the rakshasa told us to go. Human representation in Ilsur Valley will allow Humanity to take its place in this world as a race with power.”

            Wolf boy fingered the points of his ears. “Why do I care?”

            “Because if you get left here you’re going to die.” As if to underline Ix’s statement, a dragon roared in the not-too-distant distance. “Also, Farron isn’t a port city. It’s just probably the closest thing to a city that hasn’t been destroyed.”

            “Still, probably a good place to go and figure out what’s still standing.” Vier shrugged.

            “Well then. Let’s get moving.” Cassandra, it seemed, was getting tired of hanging around. She set off, heading northeast, not waiting for us to get our gear in order. We hurried to catch up to the, as the bard put it, sexy fire elf.

            Vier was actually about to start skipping after her, that ridiculous smitten look on his face, when Ix grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him back. “She’s married, Vier, and you don’t want to get on her husband’s bad side.” He cast a sideways glance at me. “We’ve actually met him, Azrael, come to think of it.”

            “Oh?”

            “Do you remember M?”

            “…No?”

            “Then you don’t remember M.”

            “Oh, come on.”  

            Ix smiled, and I wound up spending the next hour or so trying to talk him into reminding me. Finally, he capitulated.

            “Alright, alright, fine. Do you remember a kinda decrepit, life-sucked-out-of-him humanoid with a fake eye and hand?”

            “She’s married to that?” Vier exclaimed.

            “Is he mortal?” Tyranna asked.

            “The journey over was not kind to him.” We’d caught up to Cassandra. Elven hearing being what it is, she’d probably overheard most of the conversation anyway and had finally decided to participate.

            “From where?” I queried.

            “Not too far from where you’re from, actually.”       

            “Sorry?”

            “You are from Darkstar, correct?” She tilted her head. “Well, ‘not too far’ may not be all that accurate though anything is close by when you travel through hyperspace.”

            I blinked. She was from…but…the possibilities were too fantastic, and I started peppering her with questions.

            As we walked, we occasionally heard the screeching of dragons. They started getting closer after awhile, putting us on edge enough that we all dove for cover whenever they sounded.

            Except Vier. We had to pull him after us, or he would have continued moseying around in the open. Thankfully, all we ever saw was a shadow or two cast from something flying overhead pass very quickly. Once they were gone, we contined as normal.

            About the third time this happened, Aelveran demanded of Vier, “Why aren’t you hiding?!”

            “I’ve been distracted by the drama-heaviness of the air.” The bard stated primly.

            Aelveran gaped at him in exasperation. “Get over it!”

            Vier returned the favor. “A billion gajillion people just died!”

            “Yes.”

            “I am depressed.”

            “And they’re dead. There is nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. They’re dead.”

            They kept bickering like that until I broke in with what was on everyone else’s mind. “I’m hungry.”

            Vier flicked his head in a gesture that would have translated as ‘So there!’, no matter what realm you were from, and checked his pack. “I don’t think we’ve got quite enough to get us to Farron. We should probably see if we can find anything.”

            He had to be kidding. We were still in the middle of the huge scorch mark Shardaxis…Ganus…Shardaxonus…had left behind. Where were we…I shook my head and joined the hunt.

            Someone must have been smiling down on us. Before too long, we found clean water and a few roots that had somehow managed to survive the razing. The landscape around us was utterly depressing. After we left the rubble of Kalaxia behind there’d been nothing but leveled, blackened earth for several day’s journey in all directions. Entire mountains that had ounce stood proudly against the heavens were simply gone.

            “What happened here?” Vier breathed shades of mourning still coloring his tone. I raised an eyebrow. He saw it, and defensively added, “I mean, I know what happened—“

            “An angry dragon. We were there.”

            Vier sighed and shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the destruction.

           

            Over the course of the next day, the landscape became a bit less level, though still completely ruined.  We found ourselves walking through a deep canyon. Judging by some of the rocks, what we were walking on had recently been a riverbed—and my suspicions said ‘recently’ in this case meant ‘yesterday’.

            The day passed uneventfully. In favor or speed we decided against stopping for the night, taking occasional short rests instead. Sometime long after dark, we heard the sound of countless footfalls coming from behind us. Intermixed was the sound of what may have been horses.

            “A stampede?” Tyranna suggested.

            “Maybe…”Aelveran frowned, watching the last bend we’d taken.

            “Sounds like it, but it’s enough moving to make it hard to know for sure.” Ix’s hand went to his sword, his eyes also scanning the trail.

            We were standing between a series of large standing stones that would have once made a great path across the surface of the river and now provided perfect cover.  Vier, who had been aparantly listening to the scolding he’d gotten yesterday, moved quickly out of sight by sliding behind one of them.

            Tyranna, for some strange reason, climbed on top of the tallest menhir, crossing her harms and putting on a decidedly grumpy expression. Or maybe that was just her face as usual. Whatever.

            Ix watched her climb and shook his head before he, Cassandra, and I followed Vier with at muttered, “Your funeral”

            After a few minutes, Tyranna called down to us, “Dragonkin. An army of them. I think they’ve got a few full dragons with them as mounts. We’ll be surrounded. “

            Surrounded? What on—I peeked out from the shadow I’d taken refuge in to see what she meant. There was nothing coming towards us down the canyon. A thought hit me, and I sucked in a breath before looking up at the edge of the canyon. Along both sides, glaring down at us, were Dragonkin in full battle armor. I ducked back and started to relay what I’d seen to the others, but apparently the bard had done as I had and beaten me to the punch. They shushed me as some deep-throated soldier started roaring in Draconic.

            Ix whispered, “I think they’re looking for us.”

            It’s a good thing we had him along, or else all I’d be getting out of this was a headache. I hate headaches.

            “Why would they be looking for us?” Vier whispered back.

            I nudged Ix and motioned to the ridge. There were more Dragonkin watching, quite unmistakably, us. “I don’t think they’re looking for us anymore.”

            Vier swore, and we stepped out to face today’s rather tardy trial.

             A few soldiers were already making their way down the sides of the cliff. I could see that their armor was decorated with the bones and skulls of various species. A wave of nausea swept over me, seeing that, probably backed by everything I’d seen yesterday and was still trying to ignore. Vier groaned in panic beside me, and I knew I wasn’t the only one with issues.

            Tyranna clambered back down to join us, and we regrouped to quickly discuss our options.

            “I don’t see a way out of this without a fight—do we approach them or fall back to a better defensive position?” Demon girl asked, battle-hunger already in her eyes.

            Ix shook his head. “They outnumber us, they’d more than likely outrun us, so…”

            “We’re going to have to fight.” Grimaced Vier, finishing the thought.
            “Can we open a portal?” Aelveran interjected

            “Not here—this place is way too dead.” Cassandra didn’t look like she was liking our options to much either.

            “We need life.” Vier reminded him, pitting emphasis on the last word.

            “Well, we could use them—”

            “That’s not enough—”

            ‘Remember the skulls their wearing?! That’s not giving off a good life kind of vibe!” Ix and subtlety…nope. Still not happening. “We need, like, a rainforest.”

            “Does it kill the rainforest?” asked Aelveran, tilting his head.

            “No, places like that just have a stronger connection—but that’s not the point.”

            “Right. Let’s thrash these guys.” The amnesiac dog started shifting into a fighting stance when he blinked and looked around at us, suddenly uncertain. “Um…how?”

            The bodyguard gave him a flat look. “I think we should try ot talk our way out of this first…”

            Funny he should say that, seeing as he had his sword out.

            “Can you be our diplomat, as you’re the only one that speaks Draconic?” appealed Tyranna.

            Ix laughed nervously. “You’re kidding right?”

            “If you want to translate, I can try getting us out of here.” The bard offered.

            Tyranna held up a hand, running the other along one of her horns. “Wait, what about scaring them into letting us go?”

            “No.”

            By now, enough Dragonkin had made it down to the canyon floor and were advancing on us, coming to a stop about five feet away, swords and spears drawn and pointed at us menacingly.

            One…gentleman, his slightly more ornate armor, swagger, and five or so of his fellows screaming ‘self-important’ made his way over to us and roared something. I don’t claim to understand Draconic, and quite honestly it all sounds to me like you’re going to need something for your throat later, but something about the leader’s tone seemed a bit more rude than necessary.

            “They want to know who we are.” Translated Ix, keeping a wary eye on our surroundings. Knowing him, there was probably a teleportation scramble spell forming in the back of his mind.

            “We’re…” Vier floundered for a story. It wasn’t like he could tell them that we were hunting dragons. Cromar may have been off doing that, but he wasn’t exactly the best example of a normal Dragonkin. “We’re just travelers passing through the area. We’re trying to get to the next town.”

            Ix repeated the message, paused, and added in Common, “I think I got that right.”

            Tyranna blanched. Couldn’t blame her.

            The speaker gave Ix and Vier and odd look, turned, and shouted something up to the soldiers still looking over the cliff. Several more of them started making their way down.

            We gave our bodyguard a collective look of desperation, fright, and a demand for answers. “I think they’re getting a translator.”

            A Dragonkin mounted on a rather ferocious looking lizard that walked on its hind legs, wearing less armor than the others and only bearing a sword on his hip came forward and stared speaking with Vier in Common.

            “Ix, what did you say?” Aelveran’s gaze flickered around nervously. “What did he say?!”

            The rider ignored him, and with a note of simple, straightforward authority, asked, “Who are you?”

            “We’re refugees from a town recently destroyed by the recent calamities.” Vier held up his hands and continued reassuringly, “We don’t want any trouble or any harm, nor do we mean any. We’re just trying to make it to Farron, however far away that might be.”

            “What sort of calamity?”

            “Well…our entire city was scorched and we just barely managed to escape it. We don’t know exactly what caused—”

            “Which city?”

            “Ilstan.”

            See? Geography.

            The rider made a noise like he didn’t quite believe us. “That’s a bit far, and you don’t look like you’re from Ilstan, either.”

            “We were just passing through. We’re a troupe of performers. I’m the head bard and each one of us does a different trick.”

            Say what?

            “Well then, how about I make a deal with you. You give us a show, tonight, and we’ll let you go tomorrow…relatively peacefully.”

            Vier turned around to face us, and he was wearing a grin I’d seen on used ship dealers. “So, team—what do you think? Sound like a good deal to you?”

            Ix glared at the bard and said flatly, “I hate you.”

            Couldn’t agree more. But, there was no other way out. Vier faced the rider again.

            “Well, we haven’t done a show in a while, so if you’ll give us a little time to get our acts together for you tonight we will put on the best show that we can for you under the circumstances.”

            As soon as the translator was gone and had taken most of the soldiers that had the business end of their weapons pointed at us with him, Veir’s smile disappeared. “Alright. It’s almost dawn. We have a day to prepare.”

            “We have a day to get out of here.” Ix disagreed.

            Vier sighed. “You said it yourself. They’d probably catch us if we ran and I don’t think that they’re going to just let us leave. We don’t have much of a chance to escape, the best we can do is see if we can work something up tonight and…kinda go from there. We can do this, okay?”

            I, and clearly Ix as well, still didn’t like where this was going, but nobody could gainsay him, so...well. The show, as they say, must go on.

            We were directed by several guards towards a wagon covered in spikes and yet more bones. We piled in, and as we did I heard Tyranna mutter something appreciative of the décor. I glanced back at her, and caught sight of wolf-boy contemplating the bones like he wanted to start chewing on one.

            Oh boy.

            As soon as we were all settled, we jumped right into planning.

            “Tyranna, how good a dancer are you?”

            She smiled in a way that showed her fangs. “Pretty good.”

            “Yeah?”
            “Give me a pole and I’m great.”

            There was a sudden pause in the conversation before our illustrious leader continued. “Something tells me we’ll be able to scrounge something up from all the spears around here. Think you could do something like a fire dance?”

            “Oh yes, easily. I could probably do one of those shows where the spinning ball on the end of the rope is on fire as well.”

            “If you wanted to, you could probably juggle Bob.” I threw in.
            “Would Bob be alright with that?”

            Bob, who I had summoned at the start of the conversation, blushed a deep crimson and hid behind my shoulder. The imp had a huge crush on Tyranna, and we all knew it. It was far too much fun to watch him squirm.

            Aelveran shook his head, looking a bit uncomfortable with the whole idea. “These are Dragonkin. They usually don’t like Tieflings.”

            Tyranna shrugged. “Well, what do they like? Fire, right?”

            “They should. Not only are they Dragonkin, but they’re the Niholt Raiders. I recognized their insignia.” He paused and gave me and Ix a significant look. “They’re servants of Nidon.”

            I blinked. That was a name I hadn’t heard in a while. Nidon was a peer of Shardaxis. We’d never met, but the last time Ix and I had tangled with one of his minion it had been in Ankeg, just after we’d met Vier. It hadn’t been pretty. We didn’t even get to properly kill Janith, as she was a lich and her phylactery was held several thousand miles away in Nidon’s hoard. Everything we’d heard about the dragon himself said that he was one grumpy, miserly, obviously evil and ridiculously powerful old dragon with a nasty habit of using the bones of his fallen enemies as a decorating scheme.

When we’d destroyed Jannus, we’d essentially sent what was left of her back to her owner. Which meant there was a half-decent chance he’d heard of us. We were going to have to be careful, and hope that the fact a night elf was traveling with the band that removed Nidon’s sorceress from the field had been missed. Not to be conceited or anything, but I was a rather singular marker. I was once again thankful for my long established habit of not going anywhere without my cloak on and hood up. They hadn’t seen my face.

I shook my head. Worry later, plan now. “So. We’re a traveling freak show…”

Vier gave me another one of his trademark flatly unamused expressions. “And you’re going to be putting together an electric light-and-shadow dance piece.”

I gave him my most obnoxious, sunny grin, partially to cover the nervous feeling in my gut. “You show a great amount of faith in my abilities. Thank you!”

“I’m the bodyguard.” Ix clearly didn’t want anything to do with the stage.

I smiled, and Aelveran asked the bard, “And what are you going to be doing?”

“Werewolf puppet show.” He said promptly.

Aelveran stiffened. “Say what?”

Tyranna fought to conceal a giggle as Vier explained, “You are going to turn into a werewolf and I am going to use one of my spells to control you.”

“I don’t like this idea.”

            “And in the interim, there will be some songs and…we need to work out a plan. Are we going to try and escape during the show or…” He shook his head. “They’re not going to let us out of here alive. E need to figure out how we’re going to make this work to our advantage.”

            “Well, if you’re really going to us my…wolf to your advantage…you could push me over the edge and cause me to run off in a certain direction, and then there’d be mass mayhem and chaos and you might be able to get out.” Suggested Aelveran, looking grim. “I might die in the process.”

            Tyranna jumped in. “Or you could attack them in your werewolf form and—”

            “Die after being overwhelmed. Bad plan, Tyranna.”  I finished.

            Aelveran raised a hand, trying to keep the peace. “Either way, I’m probably not going to survive.”

            I shot him an exasperated look. “We’d rather not have you die, Aelveran, or deal with the horrible odds that present themselves when it comes to saving your tail. Once was enough for me.”

            Thankfully, Vier seemed to have an idea that did not include someone dying. “What if we did a sort of finale piece where we take all of our efforts and put them together? While doing so, we’ll throw the biggest combined blast of energy we can into their camp, grab some mounts, and get the Hell out of here. You too—“, he motioned to me and Tyranna, “are going to have to be the major powerhouses behind this, the rest of us don’t really blast much. I can add a little bit of fire to it, but I can’t do a whole lot. The best I can do is a little bit of mind control on their chief or somebody to throw a bit of extra panic in there so we can get some mounts and get out.”

            I sat back for a moment, considering. It wasn’t a bad plan—your standard smash-and-grab, really. But how much, I wondered, could Tyranna and I really do?

            Aelveran tilted his head again in a way that made sure you knew he was about to derail the conversation again. “Wait. How do Shardaxis and Nidon feel about each other?”

            “Lore says they’re negatively neutral. They’re competitive, but never at war.” As usual, Vier seemed to have more patience with him than I did.

            “So it’s feasible that they’re currently on the same side.”

            “They’re not necessarily on the same side, but they’re not fighting each other, either.”

            “Dragons are on one side.” Ix stated firmly. “Their side.”

            “But if Gannus….Shradaxis…Gannaxis…”

            “Shardaxonnus” Ix supplied. So I hadn’t been the only one. Good.

            Aelveran nodded to him. “If Shardaxonnus suddenly decides to recruit Nidon…”

            I finished the thought. “Would Nidon go along with it.”

            The half-elf shook his head. “The Great Dragons only work for themselves.”
            “So…no.”

            “No. That’s how the Dragon Empire fell. The older ones got bored and decided to have the adult and adolescent dragons fight for fun.”

            “Alright, so, can we do anything with that to our advantage?” He really wasn’t going to let this go, was he?

            “Probably not.”

            There was a moment of silence, and we looked at each other nervously.

            “So, the finale, then?” Vier prompted.

            “We all hate you so much right now.” I bared my teeth at him in a grin.

            “Well, either we go through with this or we don’t.”

            “I’m up for it.” Said Tyranna. “I think the finale, if we can pull that off…see, what I’m thinking is get an orb of sorts of light and fire going between Azrael and me and toss it out over them and get the lighting to arch around stunning everyone. Mix in a rain of fire, and it might work.”

            I studied one of the ribs holding the canvas of the wagon up, feeling none too confident. It was a nice idea, and if we could pull it off it’d be all kinds of pretty, but that kind of control wasn’t easy for me.

            Aelveran had gotten distracted before Tyranna had even started explaining her idea, and was busy talking to Ix and Vier. It sounded like he was trying to get out of being a puppet and into something more acrobatic.

            “We might just have to do a sort of tamer act,” Vier said, “where I won’t have to control you directly, I’ll just lead you like a puppy to do some things. I’ll want to save my mind control to make them attack each other, anyway.”

            “And what if the moon is out tonight? Then what?”

            Ix shook his head. “The moon is only mostly full, and it looks like there will be plenty of cloud cover.”

            “Okay, and if so, and I can’t go wolf, I’ll just…throw my sword in the air.” Aelveran stated massaging his temples, looking a bit tired.

            Vier tried to be encouraging, clearly giving the idea some credit. “Play around with your sword. That’s all you have to do, just…” Vier brightened. “You and Ix could have a duel.”

            Aelveran smiled slightly, and cast a glance at the half-elf. “That’d be fun, Ix.”

            Ix grinned back, challenge coloring his expression. “Bring it.”

            “Right, just be careful not to hurt each other.” Vier cautioned. “Make it look real, but don’t hurt each other.” He paused, then added, “And make it look fancy, like, you know…crouching rabbit, hidden kitty?”

            Say what?
            “Vier. I can walk. Through. Walls.” Reassured Aelveran, adding stress to the last three words. “It’ll be fancy.”

            “Okay. Oh, and remember not to use all of your tricks at once—we’ll need something up your sleeves in order to get out of this.”

            “I’ll use some smoke bombs then.”

            “Can you be sneaky?” Ix asked Aelveran.

            Aelveran looked amused. “Is the sky blue?”

            “Well, no, actually.”

            “Okay, fine. Is the sky grey?”

            “Yes.”

            “Yes, I can be sneaky.”

            “Alright. Can you, once they break camp, figure out where the better mounts are?”

            “Sure.”

            “When I say better mounts, I mean a combination between ‘faster’, and ‘easy to get to’.”

            “And not dragons.”

            “I am not picky right now.”

            “Well, a dragon isn’t going to take you anywhere.”

            “Mounts are mounts.” Said Vier.

            “Mounts are mounts.” Ix nodded in agreement.

            A thought hit me, a hope I’d given up on a long time ago, just after we’d left Ishtar. It brought an uncontrollable grin to my face. “And if we find a drake, I call it.”

            “Well, it’s a good thing they have some drakes for mounts—we’ll need your firepower.” Something in Ix’s tone said ‘Not that we’re going to let you keep it.’

            Not that I cared. I’d find a way.

            I sat there, grinning like a mad woman, and everyone seemed to decide to deal with me later.

            “Well, people, it sounds like we have a plan.” Vier started rubbing his hands together nervously. “Are we ready for this?”

            We were all in agreement, and fell into flushing out further details.

            “Okay. Tyranna. We’re going to start out with your fire dance—we’ll want something titillating, something to get their attention, and make them more interested in the show than killing us, and I think you’ll be the perfect way to do that.”

            The demon-girl nodded her understanding.

            "Indeed, as you have a tail,” Ix confirmed, looking at Tyranna, “And she doesn’t.” He pointed at me.

            “If the moon does happen—don’t let me see that.” Aelveran warned.

            “What do you mean?” Vier looked at him questioningly, then realized what wolf-boy meant. His eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh my. Um. You will be muzzled and leashed if that happens. Well, leashed…”
            “I can put him in a lighting cage!” I volunteered.

            “Having had hugs from you, I’m not sure how much I like this idea. You’re scary.”

            Vier asked, “Ix, can you help me put together a harness just in case wolfishness does happen?”

            The bodyguard shrugged. “I was thinking of just a headlock.”

            Vier pursed his lips. “That would actually be really cool. Aelveran?”

            “Sure.” The elf assented, “but Ix, do you want have me in a headlock that long?”

            “I can.”

            “And run?”

            “I can.”

            Okay, so that was them, Tyranna, me…”Vier, what are you going to be doing, a ballad?”

            “I’m going to sing…a variation of one of our most productive hits back in Ankeg. I’ll have to make some slight changes to it, as I don’t think they’ll enjoy all of the lyrics. ‘Kill the dragon over there’ wouldn’t go over well with Dragonkin.” Vier drew a deep breath and sighed, trying to maintain his composure.”

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