Aurora shifted slightly as she viewed the events going on in Ria’s house. At the same time she was snacking on a cow that had been gifted to her by one of the Dragon Clans. Watching the young demon being punished by the older archmage had been interesting. She was nicely impressed by Ria’s creative use of an older spell to get a different effect. Right now the demoness was scrubbing the bedroom, while the others were having an awkward dinner time conversation.
It seemed the twins were now a little afraid of Ria. Aurora figured it was their imaginations having painted a picture far worse than what actually happened. Fortunately, it looked like the awkwardness passed after a while. Around that time, they started sharing what happened during their days.
The twins had a for the most part boring day, but they had talked with a number of adventurers. Arcs had greater traffic than Voros, so they had gained quite a bit of news that Aurora already knew. However, she wasn’t listening to the news, but enjoying their reactions to what was going on in the world.
There were three particularly juicy events that they had learned off while talking with the locals and the adventurers. The most important of which was the existence of Xaros. Xaros was a figure who had her a bit concerned. He was a Solean Lord, or Skylord as the mortals called them. He wasn’t, however, one of the ones that were worshiped as the High Gods. In fact he had never visited this world before. He had set himself up as a god over in Western Nykova. Unlike others he was preaching that he was the only true God, and was making a lot of noise.
He was having some trouble spreading his religion, but that was to be expected. Monotheism was a rather alien concept to the locals, and while they weren’t opposed to adding a new god to the pantheon, they weren’t willing to throw away the gods they already had. At least this bastard was a Dark Lord, while he might enslave his followers he wasn’t one of the twisted self-righteous morons called Light Lords. They did their acts of evil under the guise that it was for the betterment of the people, when most of them only cared for their image. Dark Lords were at least honest with themselves, and others.
As for Xaros, she would have taken care of him herself, but he was making use of forbidden magics to bolster his strength. She knew only one person that excelled in fighting those who used forbidden magics, so she merely had to wait for him to awaken. She had already set the events in motion, so all she had to do was make sure Xaros didn’t interfere. So far he hadn’t even noticed what was going on, but that would change soon.
As for the girls she was watching, none of them could even understand the concept of a single god, and found this bizarre religion strange. This wasn’t even the strangest thing going on in the world. They were appalled when Lily mentioned an outbreak of Soul Snatchers in the neighboring town of Staerbi. Soul Snatchers were a kind of plant demon common to the infernal plane that had a thing for stealing souls. It released a sweet pollen that was especially effective at luring young girls and women to the plant. The pollen also clouded the mind and made those who inhaled it more vulnerable to the soul snatching process. As soon as a victim was in range it would use a special vine and latch onto the victim, and suck their soul out of their body. The body, however, will remain alive, and serve the plant as a minion. These soulless husks are effectively mindless, but the plant is highly intelligent, and could easily control hundreds of people. While making it look like they were perfectly normal. Which made these things really troublesome to deal with. Which is why most of the demon races avoided the lands in which these plants grew.
Aurora didn’t like the things either, so she had sent her youngest daughter out to take care of the things. She considered this task a good test of precision razing of a town. Most of the people could be saved if the plants died before they finished digesting the souls they have stolen. Those who can’t will simply drop dead when the plant controlling their body is killed. Her daughter had little trouble razing a town, but she wanted her to destroy the plants while leaving the town mostly intact. Which was actually a bit tougher than just burning down the town, and its surroundings. As for herself, she was having some cravings for Drava so she was going hunting in Northern Varixyies.
As for them, Ria made it clear in no uncertain terms that they were to stay clear of that town, and let the guild clear out the nasty plants. Clearing monster dens was one of the tasks that the mortal races assigned to the Adventurer’s guild. Other tasks included exploring ruins and dungeons. A few of the more brave adventurers even tried exploring dragon dens. Which was a good way to end up dead, or if you're lucky the dragon might keep you as a plaything or in the case of a female dragon a servant.
Speaking of servants as she watched, she called a couple of them into the room. Two naked young girls slipped into the room from a neighboring room. With simple gesture a couple of words, she directed the two to remove the bones of the cow she had been snacking on. As she watched them, she considered her appearance and noted she needed a bit of a bath. One advantage of humanoid servants was that they were very helpful for scrubbing those hard to reach places. Sure she could take a bath in a humanoid form, but that didn’t actually affect her natural dragon form. Had to do with how exactly her other form worked. Might be a good idea to have them brush her teeth while they were at it. Brushing teeth with claws was a pain in the ass. She could do it, but the servants just did a better job of it.
Then she noticed Rose brought up the last juicy thing they had heard while in town. That the Crown Princess was currently missing. Aurora already knew about it, but listening to their theories on what happened was particularly interesting. Both of the Contreys were clearly concerned about this, while the twins were more in the juicy gossip camp. Aurora wasn’t entirely surprised about this. Voros wasn’t all that active in the political arena, and the nobles barely knew the village even existed. Some of their theories were wildly amusing, and a bit revealing of their thoughts.
Then the two servant girls from earlier spoke up, “We finished placing the bones at the entrance Mistress. Is there anything else you require?”
She focused her attention on them, and canceled her scrying spell. The girl on the left was smaller, and had a pair of white triangular ears on the top of her head, and a long white tail. She was one of the beastkin, specifically she was a catgirl. They were a bit rare around these parts, but quite common to the south. The other girl had long pointy ears, and green hair. She was an elf, and also more common to the south than around here. The elf had been the one to speak, and she replied, “Yes, I could use a bath, and a good tooth-cleaning.”
“Yes, Mistress. I’ll have the bath readied for you,” said the elf girl. Who then hurried out of the room, and the catgirl followed her out. She gave them a few moments while she stretched her large body. Then she pushed herself off the warm floor, and made her way down a large stone corridor. One that had been dug to accommodate her bulk. The walls were polished and smooth. Not the rough natural cave walls that the mortal races attributed to the lairs of her kind, but that was because the normally only saw the lairs of lesser dragons.
Passing several turns, and a room containing an ancient shield generator, she made her way to the bath. Which was more of a large shallow underground lake. It was filled by a couple of waterfalls, and had drains in the floor. The water was warmed to a comfortable temperature by manastones embedded in the rocks. Dozens of servants were already there, and not a single one wore clothing. This was their natural state after all. She moved into the water to enjoy a nice relaxing bath before she took wing for that hunting trip.
Arlie was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow in the guest room she was sharing with the twins. Ria didn’t have enough guest rooms for everyone, so she had ended up sharing a bed with the twins. While the boys were left sharing another room, and Ixil was left in the last guest room. In her case, she was actually locked in the room. Ria didn’t trust the demoness, and had locked her in the room alone.
Lily moved into the bed on her left side, while Rose snuggled in on the other side. Lily figured that Arlie must have been exhausted as she normally didn’t fall asleep so quickly. She also found herself a little worried about Arlie. She was hiding it, but she had noticed that something was stressing Arlie a bit. The gossip session seemed to help, but she didn’t really seem to relax until near the end of the session. Snuggling closer to Arlie, she found her thoughts drifting to the temple.
She felt it was the temple that was really stressing her best friend/sister. She didn’t blame her for being stressed over it as she was also worried about it. Her thoughts were mostly on the dragon though, and how their visiting the temple played into her plans. She had the feeling that she was missing some part of the puzzle, but without more information, she couldn’t figure out what piece she was missing. She was still thinking about this coming visit when she finally drifted off to sleep.
The next morning went smoothly. Lily ended up helping Rose in the kitchen, while Arlie helped her cousin make some potions in her workshop. Thron ended up getting the cart and horse ready for their departure, while Horon helped. As for Ixil, Lily didn’t see her as Ria left her locked in the guest room. Breakfast was mostly silent, but Lily noticed Ria slip something to Arlie. It looked like she had been handed a few doses of some potion, but she didn’t know what potion it was. She barely gave it a thought however, and instead focused on her breakfast.
After breakfast, they readied their gear, and a few minutes later they were out the door. The early morning streets weren’t too crowded so they had no trouble crossing the river and getting to the north gate. While the river had boats moving in and out of the docks, the traffic was light, and didn’t actually matter thanks to the large raised stone bridges that allowed people to cross between the main part of town, and the expansions on the north shore. Like at breakfast there wasn’t much talking while they walked. They had just reached the north gate when a massive shadow passed over them, and Lily looked up to see a form she recognized. Black, silver, purple, and blue scales glimmered in the early morning sunlight. Two massive pairs of wing supporting the huge majestic form of the dragon they had met in the forest a few days ago.
She shuddered as she remembered the foreign feeling of her body being controlled by another, and whispered to Arlie, “Did you see her?” As the Dragon had already disappeared from sight, having flown out of sight mere moments after Lily saw her.
“Yes, I saw her pass. Best not to worry about her. Let’s talk with the guard and get on our way. I’d like to get there as quickly as possible,” said Arlie as she pointed towards the gate. Given the time, there was only a short line.
Lily considered asking about what was bothering her, but decided not to. It just didn’t feel right to ask her in the middle of the street. Less than a turn later they had reached the gate, and Arlie spoke with the guard. The chat was brief and then he waved them through the gate.
Wait ... is Lily able to read the mind of other people ???