To the ruins, it was decided, we would go and try to crush this cult, certain that Esmerelda would be found among them. We would be rested up for an assuredly difficult mission. Each getting cleaned up and settling into his own room provided by the temple. It was great to be in a bed again, and the ones at this temple were particularly nice. I had wonderful sleep considering the plans for the next morning.
Awake to another cloudy morning which this town seemed to have quite frequently, I stretched and rolled out of bed. I drew a card from my deck: The Torturer. “Oh, great. Evil death cult and I draw this,” I muttered, less than amused at my deck’s sense of humor. I threw my clothes on and combed my frizzy hair back. My hair is always at its worst after a bath, but there were more serious things to deal with that crazy hair. I reached into my bag to check on the egg again. When I opened the special wooden case, I got a big surprise. The egg was cracked and empty. “OH $#!+, Sehanine, $#!+ on me!” I had not been ready for this. The case was clipped shut, so if anything had tried to get out, the clips would have been broken. I considered maybe this egg was empty, but it seemed unlikely since it had weighed about the same as the other eggs. Cherry was the only other person who knew about the egg, so I ran to her room quickly.
“Cherry. I did a bad thing,” I whispered to her. “The egg, it’s broken and there’s nothing left but the shell. I don’t know what happened to the dragon.”
“Oh my god! Well, you have to tell the others!” she said a bit too loud.
“Shh…I know, but they’ll kill me,” I whimpered.
“Yes, they probably will,” she said with a giddy smile. “Are you going to tell them?”
“Yes…I have to…” I said nervously as I went back to my room.
The halfling seemed a bit too happy to see me caught. I sat in my room thinking of how I would tell them and noticed a mouse scurrying around the corners of the room. I locked eyes with it and slowly reached for my casting tools. It sat still in the corner hoping I would not pounce, but I had another plan for it. After a few murmured words and a careful arrangement of my tools, the mouse skipped under the door and into the foyer of the temple where Cherry was standing with Iceborn and Kriv with a big grin on her face. I pushed the bed up to the door and waited. I waited for a long time, but heard nothing. I hoped the mouse had delivered the message.
Then something chuckled. It wasn’t Cherry, it was something in this room. My eyes widened and I looked around. There was a knock on the door that nearly caused me to scream, but I caught myself. The knock came again. I didn’t answer. The giggle came again. Cherry’s voice came from the other side of the door, “Tock, are you going to open the door?”
“Are they with you?”
“No. They’re outside.”
“Are they mad?”
“Well, YEAH! Are you coming out?”
“I can’t”
“They aren’t here, I swear.”
“That’s not what worries me right now. I think the dragon is in here!”
“What?!”
“Come in quick and be careful,” I ordered as I moved the bed away and unlocked the door. Cherry came in, eyes as big as saucers.
“It’s here?”
“Yes!”
“Where?!”
“I don’t know, but I can hear it!”
Cherry saw something run under the bed. “There!” And we ducked down to see, but found nothing.
“I don’t see it,” I said.
Then another knock came on the door. Cherry answered, “Who is it?”
“Kriv, is Tock in there?”
“Yes he is”
“Well, are you coming out?”
“Not just yet”
“why not?”
“There’s a dragon in my room,” I cut in.
“The dragon?!”
“Come in and close the door behind you, quick!”
Kriv slipped through the door and looked confused. Cherry’s attention went to the closet. “It’s in there!”
I locked the door and Kriv closed in on the closet, but found nothing.
“What are we looking for?” asked a voice that I couldn’t really make out as Kriv or Cherry, but the closet may have been a bit dusty.
“The dragon!” I answered, wondering how they could forget.
“Where?!”
“The one in the closet!”
At that point, Kriv and Cherry looked back at me. I pointed to the closet, but they were no longer interested. They seemed fixed on something at the door. I turned around to look, but my vision was cut short by something perched on my shoulder.
“AAAH!” I shrieked and the little dragon disappeared behind me. I reached back and felt nothing, but then Cherry pointed to my pocket. Somehow a dragon half my size had been weightless on my shoulder and was now hiding in my pocket!
I opened the pocket and looked down and the scared creature. “Hello”
“HI!”
“Can you come out?”
“Did you find the dragon?” it answered back.
“Yes, you’re the dragon, can you come out?”
The head of a silver dragon popped out of my pocket. “Silver!” I thought “A metallic!”
Kriv stared in wonder and Cherry found the hatchling adorable. Kriv explained to us the role of metallic dragons and that these dragons were good dragons, akin to Bahamut.
“Hey little guy, who are you?”
“I don’t know, you haven’t given me a name.”
“What language was that?” Cherry asked me.
“What? What do you mean?”
“That you were speaking just now”
“Plain common…” I answered and both of them shook their heads, “…Draconic?”
Kriv shook his head.
“Well, I think he thinks I’m his mom,” I explained, baffled at what they meant about the language.
“You ARE! You took care of me, you kept me warm, you told me stories…” he chattered on from my pocket.
It was undeniable, I was now a parent to the dragon. My gaze drifted as I repeated after the dragon, “…told you stories…”
“I know everything you know! I know about the bad girl…”
“…knows about the bad girl…”
“…and Heddro’s got a cute butt!”
I stopped for a moment, looked up hoping the others hadn’t understood just now, but both looked baffled, “…and Cherry’s got a cute butt.”
Cherry giggled, “Why thank you! He’s a cute little guy!”
The dragon looked at me, “It’s a compliment” I told him. He looked back and said thank you, but Cherry just looked back at me. I relayed the message.
“What does a dragon eat?” Cherry asked thoughtfully.
“Not hungry.”
“When you do get hungry, what do you eat?” I asked.
“Hmm…I’ll let you know when I’m hungry.”
“But we may not have what you want to eat when you’re hungry. What do you eat?”
“I’ll let you know”
I shrugged. “He’s not hungry. You’re sure you can’t understand what he’s saying?” I asked them both.
“No, when you start talking to him, it’s just gibberish,” Cherry swore.
“But you can understand them?” I asked the dragon. He nodded. I addressed him in Draconic, Elven, Dwarven…
“…Yes, yes, I know everything you know.”
“Including magic? Can you cast spells?”
“Yeah, well, I can’t cast them, but you can do things with me.”
“Like what?”
“I can channel them from you.”
“REALLY?!” I said excitedly. “Okay, let’s try one. Go over there to the corner.”
The dragon hopped out and ran to the corner as I told the others to duck.
“Wait, wait, what’s going on?” Kriv stopped me.
“He’s going to channel a burst from me!”
“You’re going to use fire spells in a temple? I don’t think so!” Kriv scolded me.
I looked around, seeing his point. “Sorry, nevermind.”
The dragon snorted and hopped up on my bag to look through my spellbook.
“Okay, that is adorable!” Cherry fawned over the hatchling. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know, I’ll have to think of a good one for him.”
“Right, well, we need to let Iceborn know what’s going on,” Kriv cut to business.
I gulped, because I knew this was the one person that would likely be the most upset with me. The dragon hopped back in my pocket and we went out to the stables to find Iceborn talking with Heddro. Seeing us he walked back to the steps of the temple.
“Well?”
“Well, we have a dragon on our hands,” Kriv reported.
“A dragon. I understand this little half-pint has been hiding an egg from us,” Iceborn began, then looked down at me with his infernal gaze, “You’d better explain yourself.”
“I know. I hid the egg, because I thought it would be dangerous to have them all in the same place. In case someone was trying to get them. They couldn’t get all of them.”
“Then why did you lie to us? Why didn’t you tell us you had the egg?”
“Because I know what kind of mind tricks people can use to get information, and as long as nobody else knew they couldn’t give it away.”
“But you knew?” he turned to Cherry, who shrugged nervously. Iceborn returned his gaze to me, “Why tell Cherry?”
“After a short while it was too much, I needed to tell someone in case anything happened…like this…”
The dragon looked out of my pocket.
“It’s a silver. A good dragon,” Cherry interjected.
“Herrick knows about the egg,” I further explained how I’d gotten in the door at our meeting.
“That would explain why he wasn’t more worried about it,” Iceborn began to piece things together. “Well, what are we supposed to do with a dragon? We can’t leave it here, and we can’t tell Heddro.”
“The dragon seems bound to me. He shares my knowledge. He knows what I know and can channel spells from me.”
“Really? That could be very useful,” Iceborn got a thoughtful look in his eyes. “Keep that thing in your pocket for now. We don’t want to draw attention. I may not like what you’ve done, but I understand your reasons, and this dragon could come in handy.”
I relaxed a bit, no longer worried about punishment from Iceborn. He could be reasoned with and I was thankful for that and glad the truth was finally out.
