The next day, nothing extraordinary happened. They finally decided that taking the smuggler’s route into Celestia would be the best way to proceed, considering the difficulties they would face getting through a military city with their current notoriety. Using a map they’d found in the hunter’s cabin the planned their journey forward – the plan was to go east until they hit Nyth’Aren, then start heading south-east towards Krilm. Nyth’Aren was an Elven city, one not aligned with the greater Hegrinean government. It did have a very active church presence, but they reasoned it would be easier to circumvent that than to circumvent the King’s Guard. By the time they got to Krilm, it would only be another day or two until they arrived at where Randan had last met with the smugglers.
Aly was rather pessimistic about travelling through Nyth’Aren, but whenever one of the others asked her about it she would refuse to elaborate. Considering it was two against one, they decided to head towards Nyth’Aren anyway. In fairness, they didn’t have much of a choice. Large towns were rare in Hegrines, cities even more so. They reasoned that the large the city, the easier it would be to disguise their presence. A small town where rarely anyone travelled through would without a doubt notice their arrival. Nyth’Aren was the second biggest city in Hegrines, the only bigger one being Krilm – the capital – itself. Even though they would face a lot of threats in both Nyth’Aren and Krilm, it would be the easier way of getting to Celestia.
On the next day, they encountered an ambush in the form of a fallen tree blocking the road. In the following seconds, three things happened almost simultaneously.
First, Randan realised what was going on and turned around to warn Aly and Elion.
Second, Elion bowed down to look for something in his shoes, as he had felt like there was something poking him in one of his toes.
Third, three kobolds – the whole group except for the one who got stuck beneath Elion’s shoe – jumped out of the ground and promptly incapacitated all three of them.
Kobolds are devious little creatures. Descending from dragons – somehow – they traded their majesty for mischief throughout the generations. Most of them are simply highwaymen now, although some have amassed quite great wealth. Like dragons, they can sense the presence of magic – magical items specifically. Even without Elia’s gifts the three of them would have been attacked, but the kobolds made sure to incapacitate them more efficiently now that they did carry the items. What most don’t realise is that the future is a malleable thing, but quite stiff as well. It is inherently impossible to alter the future significantly by acting in a way that is influenced by knowing it. Once a certain aspect of the future is known, it cannot be changed. Although, there are two exceptions that may be revealed later on.
When Elion and the others came to again, they found themselves strapped into chairs arranged into a triangular shape, each facing a different direction. From the muddy ground beneath them and the roots sticking out of the ceiling above them, Elion reasoned that they were being held underground – again. This underground cavern was a lot less scary than the abyss-riddled one however, mainly because of the torches lining the wall. Instead of a dark depressing hole, this was more of a dry and dusty room. It hadn’t rained for quite a while at this point, and it was getting colder by the day. Winter would soon be upon them. It could be felt below the ground more than while walking above it. Now that Elion was forced to sit still – and he had been sitting there, unconsciously, for quite a while – he felt cold. It was a very distracting feeling, but not enough to distract him from the four small figures walking into the room.
Randan sat in the chair facing the door, and so he was the first to notice them. Each kobold came in carrying a dagger in one hand and a stick in the other. Without a word from any of them, they cut Randan, Aly, and Elion free from the chairs and guided them out of the room and through a small hallway – sometimes using the sticks to hit them whenever they slowed down or got too close to one of the torches. Their hands were still bound, but the kobolds – being able to sense magic and all – knew their captives could still do plenty of damage without using a weapon. However, because the kobolds didn’t seem like much of a threat and due to their own curious nature, the trio played along and walked where they were led without resisting.
They eventually ended up in a larger room with an altar placed on an elevated section of the room at the far end of it. Before the altar stood a throne, and on that throne sat a person who looked very similar to the kobolds but with one unmissable difference; this person was well over two metres tall. In his left-hand he held a large staff, with a ball of what appeared to be solid iron engraved in the top of it – making it more of a weapon than it might once have been. The staff was decorated with gold and silver leaves and had two leatherbound handles each placed around a third of the staff from each end. The man was clad in loose robes, and had a small crown placed atop his head. Like the kobolds, he had draconic features. His hide was a dark grey, a few shades darker than Aly’s skin, he had horns on the top of his head – growing from just below where his crown sat – and small spikes growing along his back. No tail or wings, but his stature was more than intimidating enough without them. Elion noticed that in the far corner of the room a birdcage was hanging from the ceiling. The bird inside was a beautiful mix of different shades of blue, everything from ocean to sky to the flowers his mother had once grown in their garden. It was also chirping very loudly.
As they entered the room, the colossal Draconid stood up from his throne and approached the group. The kobolds quickly kneeled in front of their leader, and presented their captives.
“We have brought you the prisoners, sir,” one of the kobolds said. The Draconid didn’t respond, but simply walked past them and approached Elion. From within his robes, the Draconid grabbed a small necklace – too small for any human to wear – and handed it over to him. Looking into his eyes, Elion didn’t see the cold and indifferent stare he had expected from the leader of a gang of kobolds, he saw desperation. He nodded to the corner in the back of the room, where the birdcage hang from the ceiling, before looking intensely into Elion’s eyes. Elion understood what he wanted from him. He didn’t understand yet the why, or the reason why the Draconid hadn’t yet done it himself, but he understood what he had to do. He decided to trust him, being fully convinced that whatever the situation or the context was, he’d rather trust the Draconid with a fearful look in his eyes than the kobolds who had brought him there.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
His trust was rewarded almost immediately, when the Draconid spun around and hit all four kobolds with his staff. A remarkable thing about kobolds is their drive to work in groups. They were originally created by some of the older dragons of the world to be servants, which explains their urge to serve a dragon-like being. This urge sometimes goes as far as to trap anything that even remotely resembles a dragon and force it to become their master. Another special trait kobolds have – and actually share with some other humanoid feral species – is a kind of feral pack-oriented rage. If a group of kobolds is attacked, the individual members of this group usually grow many times stronger. The larger the group and the greater the threat, the stronger the kobolds become. Being knocked over the head with a war-staff by someone they had thought to be under their control definitely triggered this instincts.
The kobolds grew red with rage as Elion jumped over them to make his way towards the birdcage in the corner. Aly and Randan had already prepared themselves, having noticed the weird silence and intense staring between Elion and the Draconid, but they could never have prepared themselves for the chaos that ensued. Two of the kobolds jumped onto the Draconid, gnawing and scratching at him in between painful jabs from their daggers. The other two attacked Aly and Randan, who now took on defensive stances – weaponless as they were. Randan changed his skin into that of a pale-elf – in Elvish known as a Palar – a neat little thing he had picked up from the book he was given by Elia. Pale-elves were the most physically fit and durable subspecies of elves, having no inherent magic to lean on for their defence or offence. Aly simply dodged out of the way of the first strike. By the time Elion had made his way over to the birdcage, the Draconid had picked up the other two kobolds and was fighting all four of them with Aly and Randan trying to kick and distract them as much as they could.
Elion reached into the birdcage, trying to put the necklace on the bird, but touched the metal bars ever so slightly which burned him with more pain than he had ever felt. As soon as he withdrew his fingers, the pain disappeared, and no noticeable marks were made on his finger – but that pain had been horrendous. The kobolds must have either found a cursed birdcage or cast the curse on it themselves, but he would have to somehow put the necklace around the bird without touching the metal bars. If his fingers had been the size of the Draconid’s, that would have been absolutely impossible. Fortunately, Elion had quite slender fingers for a man his size – he was a respectable 1.80 metres tall – which had never helped him as much in life as it did at that moment. Elion slowly and carefully moved his fingers through the bars and extended the necklace towards the bird, who almost dove into it with her head. Elion closed his eyes, not sure what the effect of the necklace would be. He heard a metallic clang coming from the birdcage breaking apart and falling on the floor in pieces, followed by a woman’s voice.
“You can let go of my hair now,” she said. Elion opened his eyes and stood face-to-face with what was easily and by-far the most stunning woman he had ever seen. He only noticed time was going by when she politely – yet awkwardly – smiled at him and grabbed him by the wrist. She had elongated fingernails, almost like talons, and strange hair – or so Elion thought, before he realised it was actually not hair. A collection of long and short feathers of varying shades of blue went down from her head to her shoulders, arranged in a similar shape to a woman’s shorter hairstyle. She manoeuvred Elion’s wrist slightly upwards – out of her ‘hair’ – and walked around him. The other three had not noticed any of this, having been too preoccupied with fighting the kobolds to notice the clanging of the broken birdcage against the floor.
“Tallioth!” the woman shouted at the Draconid, “Hand me my staff!” The Draconid – who was named Tallioth – smiled wide and managed to throw the staff towards his friend without it being intercepted by the kobolds. The element of surprise on her side, the feathered woman grabbed her staff and quickly disposed of the first kobold she saw. A swift strike on the head split his bony skull wide-open, his death weakening the others. In their stupor, Tallioth managed to grab another of the kobolds by the arms and legs and ripped him in half. Clearly these two had no sympathy for the kobolds who had imprisoned them. The feathered woman used her staff to break the legs and then ribcage of a third kobold, and Tallioth finished the fight by stomping the fourth one to death.
Once the fighting was over, the feathered lady cleaned her staff and turned back to Elion.
“Hello there,” she said. “Thank you for saving me, and my friend over here.” She extended a hand towards Elion, who walked over and shook her hand, managing to embarrass himself with every movement he made in her direction. On the background, he could hear an exasperated Randan softly giggle.
“My name’s Aerean, although my friends call me Aery. What’s your name handsome?” she asked. Elion blushed and forgot to respond for a good five seconds.
“Ehm, oh, I’m E-Elion,” he finally managed to get out.
“Well it’s nice to meet you Elion, and who are your friends over here?”
Randan walked up to her first. “I’m Randan, and this ‘ere is Aly. Nice to meet ya!”
After exchanging niceties and a large amount of handshakes, their new crew of five made their way out of the altar-room and managed to get out of the kobolds’ den. Tallioth had to crawl through the hallway, being as big as he is, but they all made it out relative injury-free. Aerean explained that Tallioth was mute, which by mere accident contributed to his general ‘silent-but-deadly’ appearance. In truth, he was a very gentle and sweet guy. The two of them had met years prior, shortly after both of them had fled their homes. Ever since then, they’d been travelling the world – until a pack of goblins managed to grab Aerean’s transformation necklace from her and stuffed her into an enchanted birdcage. With Tallioth unable to free her, he’d been forced to serve as the kobolds’ master until someone else came along to free her. Now that Elion had freed her, they both considered themselves to be indebted to him, and agreed to join their group. After all, Celestia was one of the only placed left they hadn’t explored yet. They had managed to avoid the Wildlands altogether, only travelling through the northern part of the Auburia Evaries.
Having gathered all their supplies and magical items, the group continued on their journey to Nyth’Aren.
