Dragon Goddess’s chosen

As we discussed, Max and I went our separate ways to get cleaned up when we returned to town. We decided against meeting up later, turned out using magic drained Max more than I originally thought and we just agreed to meet the next morning after we ate. I found him waiting outside of his house with a travel pack like my own, not the small over the shoulder bag I had seen him with up until now. He perked up right away when he seemed to notice me and immediately came over, certainly more energetic than the last time I saw him. We set off together for the farthest out quest I had so far soon after meeting up.

"You have any flowers or anything you like?" Max asked after a while of walking, he had been prodding me with small questions like this during most of the walk.

"Not really, never really thought of it before, hardly can even remember most flower names or what they look like," I replied and glanced over at him. "Why?"

"No reason... just wondering."

'Weird thing to just wonder about, though, not like there's TVs anything to ask about favorite shows.' I thought to myself with a small shrug. "If you say so."

"U-um, what about favorite color then...?"

"That's easy dark blues and purples" 

"Really, purple...like your scales...?"

"What? Nothing wrong with liking the same color... honestly like blue a bit more," I shrugged again. "What about you? If we're continuing the questions from earlier, then I get to ask some too"

"Oh... um... mine's red..." I smiled a little at him.

"Is that why you wanted to team up with me so much? Because my hair's red?" I teased and he shyly looked away.

"I-it is really pretty b-but that's not the reason..." he mumbled. I chuckled a bit at his reaction and refocused on the road ahead, only to freeze right away when I saw some wagon tracks ahead that diverted off the road and into the woods.

"Hey, stop a moment" I told him as I grabbed the quest pages from the side pocket of his pack and used Inspect on the map to try to figure out how close we were to the last known location of the cart we were looking for. 

 

Destination reached, User within search area.

 

"Huh... everything ok?" Max asked, some worry entering his voice.

"Yep, everything is fine, I think we found where we're supposed to be searching,” I pointed out the wagon tracks to him and he cocked his head cutely at first then he went over and kneeled by the tracks. 

“I didn't even see them”

“Maybe try looking ahead while walking next time?” I teasingly suggested as I looked around the area for a reason why the cart would have suddenly turned. Eventually I found a divot that stretched the whole width of the road that someone tried to cover up with leaves and sticks quite poorly. Whoever did it only covered the divot with the foliage and none of the surrounding area. “The quest definitely said lost cart right? Not stolen?”

“I think so… why?”

“I think something happened here…” I looked around more, eventually glancing up and spotting a large branch that was cleanly cut right above the divot I found. “Yep, something definitely happened, I think the cart was diverted off the road… or wagon, whatever it was.”

“We should still try to check it out… job is to find it”

“Something is off here, though.”

“We took the job and we're already out here.” He got an admittedly very cute, determined look on his face, his normal shyness disappearing.”I'm not going all the way back without trying to find it.”

“Just saying we should be careful,” I sighed and gave the best comforting smile I could. “Stay close and keep an ear out for anything” he nodded a bit and I walked over to use inspect on the wheel tracks to make them more visible for me to follow. Max stood up as I approached and I noticed that he was sniffing the air a bit. 

“You smell something?”

“Thought I did…only smell you now,” he shrugged at me. 

“How good is your sense of smell anyways?” I asked as I kneeled by the tracks to keep up the appearance that I wasn't using my cheat skill. 

“I can tell people apart like a room away by it, why? Mom's a lot better at it, she almost could tell when dad got back to town…”

 

Maximillian Wells ability updated: Sense: Scent(impercise 60ft),

 

‘Is there a way to mute this? Don't need every update on Max’  I held back a grumble and dismissed the alert. “That's a lot better than what I can do, honestly couldn't tell that you were a guy for sure until I was holding you…” he got flustered at this and shyly looked away.

“Y-yeah… most people who don't have much beastfolk in them can't tell things like that very well… at least by smell…” he sighed and shyly shifted his weight a bit “u-um can you track where the cart went…?”

“Oh yeah, sorry” I quickly used my skill and it highlighted the pair of lines that were the tracks as they led into the woods, weaving through the trees. “Ok, follow close” he gave a determined little nod and I stood up to lead the way after the trail.

---

 

Hidden object detected.

 

This new alert in front of me after a couple minutes of walking pulled me out of my thoughts as I was focused on the tracks more than I realized I was. I paused where I was and took a quick glance around to find that I had stepped over a now-highlighted wire stretched over the tracks. I had to quickly stop my companion with my hand to prevent him from stepping into it. He gave me a confused look and was about to protest but I pointed to the wire in front of him.

“Trap,” I whispered, not sure if whoever set it was nearby or not. I followed the wire to one side of the path to find that it was connected to a pulley on a nearby tree and was redirected to somewhere in the canopy. Max carefully stepped over the tripwire and joined me on the other side while I was studying the trap. 

“Swinging log maybe? Don't see the log, though… maybe just an alarm”

“Quest didn't say anything about traps…” Max mumbled, his ears nervously swiveling around as he tried to apparently listen to our surroundings. 

“That's what I was thinking too," I gently guided him off from directly on the wheel trail with my hands. He tensed up at first at my touch but followed where I was trying to get him to. “Let's watch our step, tap me if you see or smell anything"

“Ok..” he nodded a bit and I took the lead again, now searching for traps while I followed alongside the tracks. 

We came across several more tripwires directly on the tracks as we continued ahead silently. The use of a couple of them were more readily apparent, one was set up directly on a tree with a spring-loaded frying pan at head level set to bash the face of whoever triggered it and the other apparent one was a swinging structure covered in sharpened stakes that I spotted above the trigger. Whoever was setting them definitely had a fondness of traps and was decent at hiding the dangerous part of them most of the time but not the tripwire. 

The wheel trail among the traps eventually led to a hill in the middle of the woods and circled around to behind it from where Max and I were coming from. At first I made the move to continue to follow it but Max tugged insistantly at my sleeve to stop me then pointed at his nose and his ears. I stopped and listened for whatever he was sensing and quickly noticed the sound of indistinct chatter coming from behind the hill, definitely not in common like we had been speaking with each other in. More worryingly, though, I heard footsteps coming this way from near the edge of the hill. I quickly, but as stealthily as I could, pushed Max towards the nearest bush to hide in with me as I watched for whatever was approaching. Just as we settled in the hiding spot, four short reptilian humanoids came out from behind the hill. They looked nearly draconic, their heads looked almost like a caiman's with horns protruding backwards and what I could see of their bodies not covered in primitive clothing was covered in vibrant red pebbly scales all the way out to their short dinosaur-like tails and raptor-like feet. I quietly used Inspect on the four as they neared and I was not surprised by the result but more so by how much was filled out already.

 

Kobold(4)

Rank E Small humanoid

Stats:

????

______

(All)Pack mentality: courage increased around companions. Scales with number of nearby conscious companions.

(All)Draconic heritage(fire): minor resistance to fire damage.

(One) Trap Journeyman: minor experience and proficiency in trap making.

(One) Tracker Journeyman: minor experience and proficiency in tracking prey.

____

Languages:

(All) Draconic(fluent)

(Two) Common(broken)

(One) Dwarven (broken)

 

“Check the traps Sharpclaw says,” I heard one growl to the others, I could somehow feel that it was not in common but it was coming out as clear as speaking with Max was. “If Sharpclaw wanted to check traps, she could check them herself.”

“Don't let her hear you say stuff like that, you know she's highborn,” another snapped at the first “She'll torch your sorry ass in a heartbeat.”

“We don't have to listen just because she's highborn, there's more of us”

“You make traps, Kott, she plans, you think you can replace her? I would love to see how that goes. You'll be lucky if she lets you off with just prisoner duty” I glanced at Max at this and all I got was a confused look from him.

“Prisoners” I mouthed at him but he only cocked his head a little. ‘Dammit, he can't read lips’ I sighed and watched as the four kobolds walked back the way we came from, the two still bickering. I waited until they were further away before whispering to him. “Think they have prisoners, cart trail is still behind it”

“How do you think that?” He hissed back to me as I crept towards and up the hill, it was a steep climb for the area but not too difficult.

“I… I could understand them”

“You can understand that?!”

“I guess?? Sounded like common to me” I shrugged and moved to behind a tree at the crest of the hill. From there, I could see a small camp with at least a dozen more kobolds meandering around doing little tasks, cooking, chopping firewood, making arrows…

“That wasn't common” Max pointed out quietly, breaking my concentration on observing the camp just as I spotted a slightly larger kobold with batlike wings sprouting from their back.

“I know, I know,” I sighed and glanced back towards him. My blood felt like it ran cold when I saw a pair of kobolds just past him, creeping towards us with crude crossbows in their hands then I felt the blaze of my anger start up as my instincts drove me into action. Without time for words, I pounced at the closest one and slammed it down to the ground with ease. I heard the ca-chink of the weapon go off as I brought them down but felt no pain right away from that one. The other kobold yelped before I heard its crossbow go off as well, immediately followed by the bolt glancing off my right upper arm.

“Fulgur tactus!” Max hissed and his hand crackled with electricity before he shoved it against that kobold. The small lizard humanoid was seemingly launched back, hard, as its entire body went rigid at the moment of contact. It was left convulsing at the base of the tree it ended up hitting the next moment. I re-focused on the one I had pinned under me in time to find that it fished a knife out from somewhere and was going for my thigh with it. With a growl, I grabbed its wrist and slammed its hand onto the ground with ease until it dropped the weapon.

“I heard you had prisoners, where are they?” I growled and it only glared up at me.

“Don't understand you, idiot,”  it, now hearing that it was a she, hissed back in the other language I've been hearing the rest speak. She then started taking a deep breath and I quickly clamped her mouth closed with my other hand.

“No! You aren't calling for help.” I growled and she gave me a confused look at first.

“So you can speak their language…” Max mumbled, his voice now dripping with his nervousness. I ignored that for now, focusing on our enemy below me and letting myself build the charge for my lightning breath.

“I really don't want to kill you, but if you call for help, I won't be left with much choice” I tell her, some electricity crackling audibly in my voice. “Now tell me what I want to know when I let go, nothing else, understand?” She nodded. I sighed and let her muzzle go. The kobold disappointed and angered me right away by screaming. 

“Intruders!” She yelled and the camp below erupted with noise. I growled and immediately released what I was able to build up point-blank with the small creature. She flailed for a split second below me but the half-charged lightning was enough to fry whatever brains she had up there.

“Dammit” I growled and stood up. Max paled a bit when he looked at me.

“Alex… your stomach” he mumbled softly. I glanced down to find the missing bolt lodged in my new armor off to my right side and I became vaguely aware of the head of it scraping against my skin. I growled more and wrenched it out of my armor as I looked down the hill at the camp. Only after did I realize it was a really good sign that blood didn't just pour out after that and it could have been a really bad choice.

“We need to get moving, they're coming” I told him simply. “They're resistant to fire just so you know as well…”

“O-ok, where are we going? You said they had prisoners… shouldn't we go after them?”

“... dammit, you're right.” I sighed and drew my sword “Stay close, ok?” He nodded a bit and I turned back towards the camp side of the hill just as the first of the Kobolds clambered to the top. It looked between us and its downed companions before screeching at us and drawing a pair of daggers from sheaths on its hips. “Look, I really don't want to kill you too…”

“Don't think we have a choice, Alex” Max said softly. I could only sigh and stepped forward with my sword resting on my shoulder. The kobold meanwhile, said nothing as it looked at me hesitantly and waited where it climbed up. It didn't take long for a couple more to also reach our location and I could practically feel the first one get cocky.

“They killed Ihse and Blacktongue,” one of the new ones observed as he pulled the crossbow from his back.

“They did try to attack us, caught them sneaking up on us” I pointed out and the corners of his mouth curled a bit into a smirk.

"The human learned our language, cute”

“Look, just give us your prisoners and we won't kill you too… please I really don't want to…” 

“Kill us? We outnumber you, human, why don't you surrender and we won't kill you”

“Alex… they're coming from behind too…” Max warned. I glanced back to see three more of the little monsters approaching, including the now smug-looking winged one.

‘Ok, this is a problem…’ I thought with a sigh then I glared at the one I was talking with.“Last chance, we're with the adventuring guild and we tracked a cart to your camp”  the kobold smirked more.

“Sharpclaw, your plan worked! The first idiots to fall for the quest thing!” he called over to the group behind us, this fanned my anger further as I realized we were tricked.

“Figured we'd get one soon” the winged one laughed and as I looked back at her, I saw that more of them were gathering on that side. 

“Alex… I'm starting to get kind of scared here.. what's going on… why aren't we fighting?” Max whined softly as he clutched his staff close.

“They tricked us… they put the quest up… I didn't want to kill them before… never killed something humanoid before…felt bad but now I'm starting to lose that feeling.” I growled softly and took inventory of my skills and spells to think of what could help. Then I remembered that I had a spell, cause fear, that might do something but I hadn't tried magic yet.

“Going to surrender?” The crossbow one asked. I growled at him and took a step towards him.

“How about no?” I growled and focused on the spell I had in mind and, as I hoped, the words came to me as I opened my mouth again. “Causa Timoris” 

As I said the words, I felt a pressure in my head then a fatigued feeling only in my mind, like I had been staring at a screen for awhile. At the same time, an inky darkness bubbled up from my feet and radiated out towards the enemies surrounding us. The darkness reached the crossbow wielding one I was talking to first, a smoky tendril wrapping up a leg then up the rest of his body up to his neck. His eyes then clouded over and a panicked look replaced his smirk. Most of the other five closest to us didn't fare much better than him and I heard a few weapons drop to the ground before the affected kobolds fled.

“Fucking cowards! Attack them!” The winged kobold barked at the rest and I noticed that she had flaming liquid starting to drip from her maw as she spoke, quickly realizing what she's capable of.

“What was that?” One of the ones outside my range said.

“Morons, all of you!” She took a deep breath and I quickly yanked Max back to behind me before she released a ball of flame at us. It hurt, to say the least, all over but not as bad as I expected. I was able to cover most of my torso and face with my arms, left with the feeling like I was sunburnt wherever I didn't have scales or my shoulder armor covering me. My shirt sleeves were incinerated immediately and some of whatever my arms couldn't cover also was gone as it wrapped around me. The minor pain I was left in quickly melted away when I heard Max cry out in pain behind me and it was overshadowed by my rage.

 

Fire damage reduced by fire resistance

Emotional threshold surpassed, Use rage?

 

I ignored the message at first and quickly went to undo the buckles of my smoldering armor, also ignoring my fingertips burning on the buckles. My action was enough to confuse the remaining aware kobolds and gave me enough time to drop my pack and armor before I rushed at the winged menace with a roar. Along the way, I managed to kick off my shoes before I gave into the rage and leap at the one that attacked us. One of her warriors blocked my way, however, and received my fury first as my body changed back into the larger form.

 One of my hands found the offending creature's throat quickly as I easily forced it to the ground but I just as quickly felt a sharp pain in my left side as a blade tip poked between a couple of my scales that fueled my rage further. I looked down to find the one I ended up grabbing tried to stab my heart from the side and I growled in frustration as I realized I dropped my sword and couldn't return the attempt. I didn't need it, though, and a quick twist of my wrist made its body go limp with a sickening crack of its neck. Threat handled, I glared up at my original target as she reeled back away from me.

“Dragonkin!” A different kobold yelled before I felt a crossbow bolt glance off my shoulder. I wanted to get the winged one but the audacity of the attack made me turn my attention to the one that just shot at me. That one's face quickly turned to panic under my focus and it turned to run.

‘Prey’  the thought that came to mind kind of scared me but I felt too angry to care at the moment, they hurt my new friend when I was trying to give mercy. I grabbed the knife of the kobold under me and quickly caught up to the one about to flee in a couple of strides. Chaos broke out as I plunged the knife into the tiny creature's back, the others were finally shaking off their surprise and started to throw themselves at me. I roared in frustration over the little pests but was pleasantly surprised when I heard Max's voice.

“Quaerens sagittas!” he yelled before a cluster of them were knocked away from me by the arcane bolts that followed. I smiled and turned my attention at the winged one, batting away a different kobold with my tail. Another one moved in front of me as I stepped forward but its body quickly became enveloped with a white and yellow flame with Max's nex spell and it screamed in pain “Ignus sanctus!”

“I warned you” I growled at Sharpclaw as I approached, vaguely aware of still being attacked fruitlessly all over but preventing anything from being able to hit my vulnerable front. I felt my own flaming spit drip from my mouth as I approached her while fighting off the others but, curiously, I also felt the electric energy welling up in my chest. “I wonder how resistant you are to fire…”

“Kill her, you idiots!”  She screamed at the others and I felt a volley of bolts strike my back, one finding a space between my scales and embedding itself in the base of my tail, the pain shooting up my back. I quickly whipped around to release my fire at the group of crossbow wielders but that's not what came out. The fire stream started but quickly got caught up in a crackling ball of energy forming right in front of my mouth. The next moment, the energy ball flew out with a screaming whistling noise before it exploded on impact with the centermost kobold of the crossbow group.

Lightning Dragon Breath and Fire Dragon Breath abilities combined to generate new ability: Plasma Breath

The loss of five more of their comrades broke the morale for the rest of them and they all turned tail to flee. I thought about giving chase for only a moment, but then I remembered the last reason for why I entered rage again and rushed back to Max to check him over, kneeling in front of him when I reached him. Thankfully, I took the brunt of most of the fireball but his left forearm got hit pretty bad.

“Ow…” he whined softly as I tried to examine him as gently as possible, looking for more injuries.

“Sorry” I sighed and grabbed one of my water skins to start rinsing his burn with its contents. His confused look reminded me that I was still speaking the other language and I quickly repeated myself in common. “Sorry… I tried to protect you but you got hurt anyways…”

“I-its fine…” he winced a bit as I continued pouring water over his burn. 

‘Not really… failed to protect a friend… again’ I thought to myself. “Do you have anything to help with burns?”

“Have a salve in my bag…” I noticed at that point that he was making an effort to not look at me with a very deep blush across his face, a good sign that he wasn't pale and in shock but still concerned me.

“What's wrong? Why aren't you looking at me?” I looked down at myself to find my torso completely bare and I glanced over where I had been in the past couple minutes as I felt my own face heat up. Sure enough, the smoking remains of the shirt and bra I was wearing was strewn along my path to the first kobold with my shoes, and I didn't even notice until now. “O-of fucking course” I quickly and awkwardly figured out how to my wings around myself under my arms to cover up. I then refocused and went to his bag to search for the salve. It didn't take long to find the labeled jar and gauze and return to him. He flinched again when I silently resumed treating him and shyly glanced at me, still blushing hard.

“Sorry… didn't mean to look… didn't know it would fall off…and you're really pretty and…” he mumbled. 

“I-it's fine, I understand… kind of hard to not to when you're like chest high to me like this…” I joked softly as I bandaged his arm. I wasn't sure why I felt so embarrassed about it, I wasn't self conscious about my body before this world, but joking with him helped alleviate the feeling ever so slightly. “Ok… think that's all I can do for you for now…” 

“W-we should probably look for those prisoners…” Max mumbled softly and I nodded in agreement before standing again and going to collect my scattered belongings “Wait… Alex, there's an arrow in your tail…”

“Dammit, forgot about that… can you get it for me… really don't want to find out where that goes when I change back.

“O-ok…this might hurt though…” I nodded in acknowledgement and leaned against a nearby tree. I soon felt his small hands hesitantly touch my tail, an oddly pleasant feeling but that quickly went away when he started to work on getting the bolt out, that hurt worse than what it did going in. “Hey, Alex…”

“Hmm…?” I responded, wincing a bit in the pain.

“L-lets just do E rank quests for a bit…” he said softly but I could hear a bit of a joking tone. “Mom's gonna kill me for getting hurt again already…”

“Sounds fine to me” I laughed softly. “If we get this payment I should be able to relax for a bit…”

He eventually pried it out and it clattered to the ground with a couple of my scales. With that dealt with, I collected my belongings and led the way down to the kobold camp to start our search. The cart we were looking for was quick to locate, finding it still full of cargo, the prisoners, or prisoner as we soon found took a bit longer. He was a human merchant and it turned out, according to him, the kobolds forced him to write up a quest posting and they took it to Rookville to put it up in the middle of the night. At first the merchant tried to back out of giving the promised reward he put on that fake posting but after some convincing and pointing out that we'd get no credit already for the unofficial quest, he coughed up the reward as long as he got to keep his cargo, no problem to us. Being a seven foot tall dragon lady definitely helped that “negotiation” and after we got the coin, we left the camp to find somewhere else to rest for awhile. On the way out, I grabbed a discarded long coat that reminded me of a trench coat, to cover up with for when I changed back.