A Tyrant, Sort Of

Ominous as their entrance had been, Sable and Granite’s descent into the bowels of the ancient city’s catacombs was surprisingly unimpeded.

Sable’s size in her newly found dragon form was inconvenient, but not impossible to deal with. She could shuffle down the cramped, dirt-packed catacombs without getting stuck. An average corridor wasn’t so skinny she found herself unable to progress, though neither were some of the more constrictive hallways a comfortable fit. In the skinniest portions, her sides brushed against stone.

Would that change, eventually? Her size?

She assumed so. Her juvenile form was undoubtedly temporary. As she advanced, she’d grow larger and larger. How much so? And how fast? For that matter, what caused her to? Was it age, like most creatures? Was she stuck to waiting for a mundane sort of physical progression? Or would her level affect it?

For some reason, she thought the second. Levels and stats tied into her size. She couldn’t say why she felt comfortable in that belief, but she did.

And it made sense even ignoring her intuition. Dragons grew with their power. The more she leveled, collected a hoard, and rose in notoriety, the larger—and more mature—her body would become.

Aylin would know, possibly, and Sable could ask for confirmation. Or, possibly she would know. Through whatever ancient stories of dragons her people had passed down. Plenty of flaws could be present in those. But it was better than Sable’s random guessing, however strong her intuition on the subject felt.

Granitemaul wouldn’t know much on the subject, undoubtedly. He was as dumb, and simplistic, as they came, even if occasional comments suggested a surprising complexity to his thought process.

[How much further?] Sable asked.

“General Auric … it should not be long.”

Insisting on exact details from the stone golem, Sable had found, was an exercise in futility. Granite’s responses were, at best, simple and unelaborated, and at worst, confusing or nonsensical. She had chatted briefly with him, and it seemed he had memories from the centuries that had passed since the city’s fall, but they were foggy. Fractured and decayed, in the same way of his place of origin. While intriguing in an academic way, the questioning seemed to distress him if she pushed. So she didn’t. Maybe later, when it mattered.

She scraped along the catacomb’s hallways. Hearing scales brush against stone and dirt as she moved was odd. She was still adjusting to her new body. She’d accepted that she’d become a different species entirely, but then again … not really. That sort of thing couldn’t be taken in stride by anyone. In fact, she found it surprising how little the changes bothered her.

Not that she was wholly free from the disorientation of being stuffed into a new body. Much less what. A dragon. Crazy. Yesterday, she’d been a human, and now she was a dragon. The thought was ridiculous.

Eventually, their slow and steady advancement through the catacombs—which were larger than Sable had thought, considering the unassuming entrance—yielded results. Granite turned the corner of yet another branching hallway, and, Sable following a few steps behind, he pushed open a heavy wooden door. Locks crumpled under the golem’s weight, snapping open. They arrived into a room many times more grand than the ones that had come before.

“General Auric,” Granite said, sounding satisfied he’d found the way. “We are here. As requested. The leader buried with his men.”

Sable studied the stone golem, intrigued by the idle comment. Buried with his men? Were these catacombs intended for commoners, and General Auric had insisted to be laid to rest among them? She didn’t push Granite to elaborate. Half because she doubted whether he’d give anything useful, and half because she had other things to occupy her attention.

General Auric’s burial place was, indeed, nothing like the rooms they’d passed. The wide chamber was exquisitely crafted—insofar as an ancient, decaying catacombs could be—with fine stone carvings and even artworks of various sorts, mostly faded paintings, hanging the walls. An appropriate place for a respected figure of legend to be laid to rest.

More importantly, though, the encrusted jewels lining the coffin. Valuables. Items to be added to her hoard.

The gemstones were faded, like everything here, and Sable was sure they’d lost some of their value—but not all. The paintings might be dulled to the point that Sable couldn’t even recognize their original depictions, but thick, finely carved rubies?

Well. A cleaning-up ought to fix some of the damage age and neglect had done. To her knowledge, the fading should be superficial. She didn’t think gemstones withstood time poorly, though she could be wrong.

[Perfect,] Sable said. [A good start. Just what we needed.]

Her golem companion rumbled in satisfaction, pleased to have helped.

“General Auric,” he repeated.

She wasn’t sure what he meant by repeating his name, but there was respect in his tone. For a second, Sable wondered whether he was suggesting they don’t raid his tomb, as it would be disrespectful, but a short second later, he went about prying fat gemstones from Auric’s coffin without complaint. Apparently, he didn’t have a particular reverence for the dead. He respected Auric the man, by the sounds of it, but he was long gone, as decayed as the Ruins he was buried beneath.

Sable didn’t have quite the dexterity the golem did. She lacked hands, and would rather not scar the gemstones with her claws, so she let Granite handle the not-so-gentle extraction of gems. General Auric had been given a legend’s burial, and the Ruins seemed to have been a wealthy city before its fall, but that said, there was a limit to how much wealth he’d been buried with.

She considered taking the paintings and statues as well, but doubted both the logistics of the endeavor and the value of the artwork, worn-down and faded as they were. The gemstones were the best ‘bang for the buck’, so to say. Easy to carry, and also valuable.

With their pillaging completed, Sable nodded. [That will do.] It was a start to her hoard. There was more to raid elsewhere, surely, but her goal was simply to lift the stat debuff, and she thought this would be enough to do so. [Let’s head back.]

The hulking rock-man grumbled his agreement.

***

Laden with jewels, the two of them returned to a waiting Aylin, who pushed off a tree, her frown morphing to an intrigued expression.

“What’s in the bundles?” she asked.

They’d wrapped the gemstones in cloth torn from some of the tapestries that had adorned General Auric’s room. Easier to transport, that way.

[Show her,] Sable instructed.

Granite presented their earnings.

Seeing the gemstones—even dull and dirtied as they were—Aylin’s eyebrows shot up. She whistled. “You two made out like bandits.”

Literally, Sable thought amusedly, considering they’d graverobbed them.

[So we did,] Sable agreed, taking on the imperious tone she intended to cultivate around Aylin. She had reverted to more of her natural speech patterns around Granite, who Sable knew wouldn’t be as discerning. But with the goblin girl, Sable had a role to play. A fearsome, arrogant dragon. [A meager beginnings to a hoard, but a beginning nonetheless. Perhaps it will lift my,] she struggled for the appropriate word, [unfortunate restrictions.] She would have said ‘feebleness’, but that seemed a poor way to frame herself.

“I’d figure it would,” Aylin said, admiring the gemstones Granite still held out in presentation. She’d taken the golem’s presence in stride. Sable had set out to enlist him. “How’re we getting back, by the way? Can you carry him?”

Sable paused. That was a good point. Aylin was small by human standards, being a goblin, so she probably weighed sixty pounds or less. Granite, though? A hulking mass of seven or eight feet of solid stone. Hundreds of pounds. Many times Aylin.

Could she carry him? In flight? Across a large distance? With her significant stat restrictions still in place?

Maybe if he was the only passenger. Even then, it’d work up a sweat. Be slow going.

[We’ll make two trips,] Sable said calmly, as if she’d already considered the topic. [Granite and the gems, first. With luck, it will lift my weakness. Then I’ll return to fetch you.]

Aylin nodded, taking comfort in Sable’s confident tone. It was entirely feigned. Sable was figuring out things as she went.

Sable had never been a leader, not of any type. She’d been some random girl from Earth, and not a particularly ambitious one. Not a lazy lay-around, but not some out-going, exceptional woman either. She had good grades and considered herself an above average student, but that was about the extent of her accomplishments.

And now she would shortly be a near-mythical figure, the first dragon in centuries. In charge of a thrall, a collection of creatures literally made subservient to her. Likely, she would be a figure of no small importance in the coming months.

Sheesh. What a mess.

She’d rather not think too hard about her future. Not now, at least. She’d have to eventually, assuming she didn’t want to establish the second extinction of dragons.

[Wrap the gems up,] Sable commanded Granite. Then, to Aylin, she said, [I’ll return shortly. Stay here.]

Aylin inclined her head in agreement. When Sable had first met her, she’d been overly respectful, bowing and giving honorifics like ‘Great One’. That careful behavior had loosened, returning to a more casual state. Still respectful, but less stiff about it. She viewed Sable as her superior. But the excessive flattery faded by the hour.

Which Sable was oddly annoyed by. She had liked those over-the-top displays and honorifics. It was her dragon-half intruding into her thoughts, Sable knew, but the emotion still flickered before being pushed away.

She sized Granite up. Heaving up that hulking mass of stone and flying him across a significant distance? Not going to be the most fun task she’d undergone, she suspected.

The stone golem returned a passive look.

Alright, big guy, Sable thought. Up we go.

She scooped the creature up by his armpits, then, with a grunt, heaved the two of them into the air.