‘That. Fucking. Hurt.’

Xylgst groaned weakly as he flew. He could feel the shrapnel in his flank taking its bloody due, ripping and tearing as he flew. He debated landing and spitting acid into the wound to melt the metal, but thought better of it. He may not have been the smartest of his clutch, but he was by no means stupid. Spitting acid into an open wound would hurt him more in the long run than just leaving it would.

He was still annoyed about it. All he wanted to do was contribute to the defense of the world he called home, smash a bit of clocksteel up and take his leave before he got shot by something stronger than the normal guns they usually had. In spite of that, he still had the remnants of a heavy artillery shell in his gut. He should have turned back when he saw them flying, but his pride stopped him from doing it. He went after them, but he still got hurt by the biggest one.

‘How was I supposed to expect that!? The system didn’t even expect it!’ he thought to himself. He looked back to the system message he refused to dismiss so easily, scanning it once more.

[You have defeated a(n) @*^ #(^!&#$($. Bountiful experience has been awarded.]

He had never heard of anyone being given ‘bountiful’ amounts of experience, but what made Xylgst subtly quake more was the fact that the system had censored the name of whatever he had slain. That rarely, if ever, happened. The only time he had heard of it during his three hundred year lifespan was when some fanatic tried to share the names of the Creators, her words being censored as she spoke.

The pinching in his side caused another groan to echo from his throat. Flying with the sharp metal in him was quickly becoming unbearable. He was bleeding, too, which was going to be a big problem in a few hundred years, considering the sheer density of mana in his blood. Not to mention his attribute. 

A small biome of mana beasts powered by a dragon’s mana was bad enough. One powered by a decay dragon’s mana was even worse. He could not even separate the basic dragon mana and the decay dragon mana as it poured from his side. He would be yelled at by his father. He could already hear his father’s annoyed rumbling as he flew.

‘At least it’s better than mother…’ he consoled himself. His mother was an entropy dragon, the only one of her kind in the world. She had long ago internalized the inevitability of the end, but still kept a fiery passion for the world around her in spite of it. It was the premiere example of being the master of a concept rather than merely embodying it, as many dragons let their elements rule them, rather than the other way around.

Either way, his mother was much more understanding than his father usually was, which meant he was off the hook from her. Though in the case where she found fault in him, he would have rather had another go at whatever was flying around.

His muscles tensed up suddenly, locking up one of his wings and sending him into free fall for a moment. With sheer willpower alone, he relaxed his muscles and took control of his wing once more, keeping himself from falling too far down. “I’ve got to find somewhere to heal…” he mumbled.

There was, however, one problem with that. He did not know where he could have landed. The entirety of the Aekan Range was likely infested with Clockworks with nothing better to do than tear him limb from limb, which meant he could not just find a nice mountaintop to relax on. The Aekan Valley was even worse, with multiple patrols passing him even as he flew. He made sure to spit a bit of acid at the ones who came too close.

That only left sleeping outside of the Range, which was just asking for a foe that was even less dangerous, like a wyrm or a mesa dog, to come and disturb his healing process. He remembered seeing something weird happening on his way to the Pass, something that looked like a battlefield, so he decided to make his way over to that before anything else. 

He made haste to the curiosity he saw, making sure he was not pulling on anything too hard. After a minute or ten or hundred, he finally saw odd scorch marks on the sand far off. There was… something off about it. Dragons were aerial hunters before anything else, which meant good eyes came with being one as default. His eyes had never deceived him before, but he almost thought for a moment that a group of people were making a camp where he saw the scorch marks before.

As he came closer, he realized that his eyes, once more, did not deceive him. A group of crazed bastards had decided to set up a camp against the Aekan Range. In the Aekan Valley. Coming even closer still, he came to the realization that the majority of the crazed bastards to man the camp were undead. And there was a suspiciously well-armored individual watching his approach, flanked by a trio of zombies wearing robes and with wings on their backs.

He decided not to waste time on formalities, landing in the center of the small camp with a heavy thud. His sharp ears caught a few gasps from all around, coming from around the buildings. It was then that he noticed the living people working beside the undead, constructing more defenses and the like.

He ignored everything else, putting his sole focus on the necromancer, who was barely as large as his head, in front of him, “Greetings, Necromancer. I am Xylgst, Dragon of Decay. I apologize for landing here unannounced, but I am in need of a safe place to, ah, how do most say? ‘Lick my wounds,’ as it were. May I ask for your name?” On the outside, he showed the calm, confident, powerful shell all dragons were supposed to show when interacting with the locals, though being much more respectful due to his position of being in need. On the inside, however, he was proud of being able to be so formal, even with a bullet buried in his side.

That was when the Necromancer lifted their faceplate and he went slack-jawed, “Hello to you too,” the lich replied, “We saw you flying overhead earlier going pretty quick. Did something happen over at the Pass?” she asked. Xylgst did not and could not respond, still baffled by the being in front of him. He was not as sheltered as to never see a lich or even talk to one, but a lich was the last thing he expected to be making an encampment with the living. “Ahem,” she said, breaking his train of thought, “Are you alright? Or is it just that not even dragons expect me?” she asked with her hollow voice laced with humor.

Taking a deep breath, Xylgst nodded, “I did not, in all honesty. I have met liches before you, but none of them were so…. agreeable with the living.” He turned, only to see a large, if not massive, tunnel in the Range. “That is new,” he commented, “Did you dig that out with the aspiration of defeating the Hive?”

The lich nodded, “We did,” she affirmed, pausing for a second, “Ah, where are my manners? My name is Mori Athanatos, Lich Extraordinaire.” She performed an elegant bow, her bony skull deforming into something of a smile. 

Xylgst chuckled, cracking a smile of his own, “I see. If you do not mind, may I rest here for a while? I only require a day or so to heal my wounds. I will also be consuming a great amount of mana from the atmosphere around us. I apologize in advance if you require it.”

The lich, Mori, smiled even wider, “No problem at all! We’ve got plenty of dynamos around here. I hope. We are doing a bit of research and development through the tunnel for a mana-mechanical project, so please stay away from that. Other than that, feel free to stay for a while. Also, please ignore us around here; we’re still setting stuff up.”

He nodded, looking around to see most if not all of the undead return to their work, soon followed-- reluctantly-- by the living. He was about to respond, thankful, when his nose caught a whiff of… something. A gap, like a dragon born without fully developing their mana type. His head whipped around, his eyes meeting… something. Again. It was a zombie, but deformed. She had four arms and four legs, the extra four limbs fashioned from her original body’s ribs, and her back was covered in a large bone plate. Despite being a zombie, she also looked remarkably beautiful. He was more into women weighing in the tons, but he had to admit that she had her charms. Locking arms with the zombie, for whatever reason, was a young woman. The woman, upon seeing him, shied into the arms of the zombie.

As Xylgst observed the odd scene, the zombie, or death knight he supposed, stared at him for a moment before looking towards the lich Mori, “Mistress… What happened? We left for a few minutes to take care of something and… Where is Fara?”

“Ah,” the lich said, “Fara’s relaxing back on the other side. She’ll be out here in a while.” She then looked towards him, “This is Desire, one of my death knights. I should also introduce you to these three. This is Megaera,”

“Hello,” the human zombie said.

“This is Alecto,”

“Hey there,” the lizardman zombie said.

“And this is Tisiphone,”

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the orc zombie said.

Xylgst took another deep breath, smelling that empty stench once more, and looked towards the lich, “Well met, you all, but I have a question. This one,” he said, waving a wing at the death knight Desire, “Smells of dragon. A young, underdeveloped dragon, but dragon nonetheless. Did you perhaps use dragon bones or something of the sort when creating her?”

Mori tilted her head for a moment before a thought seemed to come to her, arriving with a snap of her gauntleted hand, or whatever she did to make the odd sound, “I think I get it. You see, I named their Variant after a… a unique dragon from my home nation. He was a dragon with insect wings and legs, being quite famous because of the local insectoid population. I did not expect for you to be able to… smell it?”

“I can,” Xylgst replied, “Hmm… in lieu of payment, I want to give this one a gift-”

“If you do,” the death knight interrupted, “Give it to all of my siblings. There are seven of us, just so you are aware.”

The decay dragon paused for a moment, processing the words to emerge from Desire’s mouth, “You mean to tell me… that there are ten death knights here?” he asked incredulously. They all nodded simply, “I… see. I am very much able to give your siblings the gift as well, though they have to have the same… odd origin as you.”

The death knight nodded, all smiles, and rushed off somewhere as the lich laughed, “That’s awful nice of you, you know. What’s with the generosity? Also, what’s with the ‘being hurt’ business? I’d like to hear, if you don’t mind,” she said, sitting before his head. 

He smiled in response, laying his body down in the sand-- very carefully so as not to agitate his wounds-- and rested his head around the lich, “I believe that, no matter the origin, mana does not lie. They are my kin, so I will help them. The fact that it helps me settle the debt I have with you notwithstanding,” he chuckled.

The lich giggled in response, running a hand along his long neck soothingly, “I’ll remember that,” she replied jokingly.

“As for the wound… it is a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” the lich replied, patting the ground beside her, “You three stop standing around and sit with us. You’ve been hunting Clockworks with Fury for the last week plus; you deserve some rest.”

The three death knights grumbled a bit about wanting to be ready, but they were much more willing to comply than he expected, sitting beside the lich and paying full attention to him. He then explained what happened. In full. He had a suspicion that he was breaking at least one or two long-standing traditions about interacting with the locals, but the lich deserved to know what she was facing, not least of the reasons being that she was planning on fighting.

By the end of his story, the lich was deep in thought, pacing to his left and rubbing her metal chin, and the seven newborn-smelling death knights had arrived. Each seemed to have a specific role to help the others out, be it crafting, knowledge retention, or madness. He was personally worried about the one called Jealous, seeing as how she had [Chaotic Adept], but she was much more level headed than others he met with the same Trait. 

He gathered them in front of him, lifting his neck and craning it down at them, “The first thing to remember is that dragon mana is only truly powerful when the one wielding it is powerful. Not even we dragons have discovered what makes one more powerful when wielding dragon mana, but it is a way of exercising pure, undiluted strength. As you use it, it molds you into a more powerful version of yourself, and into a version of yourself that is attuned with that which you study closest. That is what most non-dragons do to attune themselves to mana, at any rate. We dragons are born with a vague color and may refine it over time, but that is another lesson,

“Now that you know what I am offering, are you ready to claim your namesakes?” he asked. They unanimously said yes, “Then feel the power of our kind.” Though a bit corny, he was able to psych himself up to unleash his draconian mana onto the seven death knights in front of him. The mana rushed forward, almost conscious of the void of itself in them, and filled the death knights with reckless abandon. In the end, the seven had collapsed, still ‘alive,’ whatever that meant for a bunch of zombies, but exhausted and likely mentally drained.

As the four other death knights, because there had to be another he had not seen, and one human tended to the sleeping undead, the lich approached, him, “Thank you for doing that,” she said, “I… want to offer something in return but… give me a few moments. I’ll get Aerolat to take all of that metal from your body while I’m checking something. Feel free to rest yourself or whatever you need to do. I’ll see you in a bit!” she shouted, running off.

Xylgst smiled as the lich ran off. She was chock full of energy and it was a welcome change to what he was used to for liches. She was strange, but strangeness was not unwelcome then, in uncertain times.