Air and Sea V

The empress turned around and carefully scanned the dragoness, turning on most capabilities. Level 90, Gold Dragon so not hiding her race… size was two hundred seven feet… diet wasn't humans… age was 623… karma was high… lawful good.

Aaaaaand that proves my stereotype was wrong. Damn it.

"If I tell you where the eggs are, will you promise not to beat the crap out of the people who have them? I kind of would like them to survive the encounter" she questioned. Zaza looked down at her and leaned close.

"Tell me."

"Uh uh, not until I hear the promise. They don't need even more bullshit happening to them right now. I've got an investment in them holding their barricades for a little longer."

"Barricades… dwarves!" the dragoness deciphered what she had said somehow as her wings helped raise her into the sky and take flight, a long odd whistling roar coming from her as she headed for the Kaldanas Mountains.

"Huh. How the hell did she… where do you get…" The dev checked in with Grey while completely baffled at the connection made, who informed her that the dragons on the islands were heading now after the leader. "Damn it, she better not cause them to lose anymore men or I'm going to have to speed up my schedule… I am not going to explain to the mountain king about the dragons, at all."

"I won't tell if you won't ma'am" Will said. Dominic and Grey agreed.

"We really need to practice a little more on keeping hints out of your negotiations, ma'am. You're still a little off with your choice of words" Gala told her.

"Yeah, I know. How the hell do you get dwarves from barricades? I would have thought humans or orcs or something, not dwarves. Now if I said tunnels or mines, then yes, but… barricades? Flying lizard Sherlock Holmes right there." She sighed in frustration and made sure there were a few Lazarus Systems ready, just in case they somehow found out she tipped the dragons off. The dev didn't owe the dwarves anything but resurrecting anyone who was killed by the draconic creatures as a good will gesture could tip the scales in her favor.

She put an order for Zaza or the others to not be allowed inside the Eyrie, at all, not until they offered something up worth the damned place. A plan started to form in her head, aiming at maybe giving in under a very specific condition, however. "You know your grand escape has made those followers worry they have offended you, ma'am? They're looking for a way to apologize." Selene facepalmed.

5th, December

"So… this is the whole clan here now… great… wonderful…" The empress said in sarcasm while yawning, standing in front of a fairly large group of dragons, most with interesting harnesses on their wings and chest holding their eggs. Where they got the leather, she didn't know, though it might have been something magical they created on the fly. "Don't tell me you picked a fight with the dwarves to get back those things."

"These 'things' are our children, human, we would fight the heavens for them."

"Has the transfer of the Eyrie been completed?" another asked, a male silver dragon.

"Nope. Still owned by me. The deed hasn't been transferred and never will." The dev sat down on a makeshift stone chair popped out of the ground and waited for them to try and negotiate. There was no need to get angry, given almost all of them had on average a chaotic good alignment with a relatively decent karma.

"Enough of this! The Eyrie has been ours since the beginning! Who is this mortal to lay claim to our home?" The voice came from none other than a red dragoness in the back, her alignment seemed to be somehow registered as lawful neutral. Why she was among the metallic clan standing in front of the small human was beyond Selene.

"I'm the landlord who had to clean up all the trash and replace the carpet due to squatters. I'm also not seeing anything other than a ring being offered by the supposed previous tenants." Zaza put her eggs down and shapeshifted back to her elf form, walking up to her.

"What can we even offer that you would want? You already discounted an artifact that most would fight their own kin over." The dev shrugged and looked around at all the scaled faces looking down at her.

"I dunno, you could become citizens of my empire if you want. That would mean you'd be under my rule, kind of like the high elves and the dark elves. Also, you don't bother the team learning about the Eyrie, having new history to put in the museum helps everyone understand their world. I'm kind of expecting you to not accept this, given what you are and all." The gold dragon's elven face dropped. She couldn't be serious. A laughter spread through the others as they thought it was a joke. No dragon bowed to a human, or any lower mortal race, ever. Zaza, on the other hand, could only vaguely sense how strong she really was.

"This is a joke, you are pulling our tails, yes?" the silver male, Gelg, asked. Selene just shook her head slowly.

"My way or the highway. You live here, you don't eat any farmer's livestock, you don't harass any of my citizens because you share the same citizenship. You get all the benefits that come with that as well, all the rights. That basically means no adventurers coming around to steal hoards or try and kill you, no armies coming to invade, you get to live decent lives. I get immigrants that can teach about your kind, explain wild magic and anything else that the other races don't fully understand. I'd say it's a pretty good deal in both directions."

"And you also expect us to somehow fight in your wars" the red dragoness snapped.

"Nope, don't give a shit about you being in any skirmishes and frankly, you'd just get in the way of my military. I don't even want to try and show any of you off, if I wanted to, I'd get a clockwork dragon built for that. Oh wait, I sort of already did that." With a wave of her hand, a huge form flew in and landed made of some unknown metal, with gears layered along the joints and serious armor paneling everywhere else. Jets seemed to puff at segments throughout acting as small thrusters along the wings, the maw slightly open with a heat emanating inside along with glowing eyes. It was massive, easily dwarfing an iron male sitting in the clan.

"What is this abomination?!" one of them snapped.

"No, that's a clockwork dragon, the abomination was something I fought roughly about a month ago, two very different things. If I want to, I get to show this thing off anywhere I feel like, so I don't really need any of you. I'm offering a chance to get your home as long as you bend the knee… claw… wing… whatever. Again, I'm seeing a good deal here for both of us. You get your ancestral home, get to be happy Clockworkians with all the nice stuff offered; I get historical accounts of things you guys and gals have witnessed or been a part of, translation of draconic, maybe a few other minor things… this heavily favors you all, seriously." The group looked around at each other.

"This can't be… we can build another…"

"This has history in it for us! As well as… that… We cannot!" They started arguing with each other, debating on the choice. The dev got a heads-up notice from Robert involving one of the science teams finally fixing all the development of the meat trees. They could be planted whenever she wished, producing protein chunks with the texture of chicken, beef, different types of fish, rabbit, even venison and a few others with more to come with altering the mutation. That answered the feeding issue for the dragons. It also offered a chance to transform ranches into more farms. The ranchers wouldn't need to worry about feed, though they would need to worry about waste disposal and an upgraded fence to keep wildlife from sneaking in. There also wouldn't be a lot of greenhouse gasses emitted either. Becoming a complete vegetarian without foregoing the benefits of meat or dairy was a real thing now.

"I… accept." Zaza kneeled to her, with the others shocked that she would do so. As she looked up, Selene just thumbed behind at the door.

I was not expecting that. I really wasn't. I thought they'd just say fuck it and leave. That's proof there is something very important hidden away that I need to know about.

"Head on in. By the way, I am serious about how rent is to be paid in the form of assisting the people throughout the empire and educating the team here. I don't have time for freeloaders thinking I went soft on them." The red wyrm stomped forward, trying to ignore the puny human in the way.

"I wouldn't do that Narastrael." The red dragon stopped and looked at the kneeling elf. "She is more than meets the eye." Selene just sat there, her arms crossed, not really moving as she smiled up at the dragon attempting to bypass her.

"My house, my rules. Don't like it? Go, get out of here. The fact I even see a chromatic dragon amongst metallics must mean you made friends with them in some way, either an alliance or whatever. You're the outlier here from what I can see. Is there even a room with your brood color on it?" The others simply stared at her, wondering what she would do. Her reputation as a chromatic that was now a part of this clan was on the line now. The red dragoness growled in response, glaring at the empress, then softened quickly as she looked at the rest of her clan.

"I… yield… by the ancient ones, this is mortifying…"

"Head in, mind your head, don't step on any of our stuff. If anything is broken, please be sure to call maintenance." Each dragon finished with bowing to her, then strolled inside the main armored gates, no paperwork due to the fact that Selene didn't think they would even try to sign.

What they found was a clean tunnel entrance heading to the main cylinder a kilometer in radius, with a spiraling ramp fully installed to each massive chain of chambers branching away, making the whole place feel like a giant tree hollowed out the mountain. There were structural supports placed throughout, with lighting strung everywhere not allowing one single shadow to be seen. It was also incredibly clean, with no dust found, the floor reinforced with steel rebar concrete slabs where it didn't continue down into the depths further. The branches had enough space for roughly twenty-five full grown dragons each, though the empress didn't quite know how large a brood could grow to. A small tent city was in the middle with Erina and her sister studying fragments.

"Wha… dragons?! They aren't… I mean… they're… don't tell me… are they going to live here?" Yelena yelped out as they passed by. Four gold, three silver, three steel, two bronze, two brass, three iron, two mercury and a red. Not one platinum or copper was seen. There was no guarantee a platinum even existed here.

"And they aren't even trying to eat us, very interesting. I wonder if I can ask some questions of them, maybe get past some blocks in our research here" Erina replied as each brood settled in, placing their eggs carefully down. "Oh, they're going to eventually bring a hoard, it's going to be interesting to catalog all of it."

"Don't do that, just… just don't do that" Selene said as she came up behind the two women.

"But… oh… I was hoping to…" the dev shook her head, worried about the end result. The last thing she needed was to hear about one of the students or Erina getting hurt or eaten because she looked like she was stealing something. Yelena gave her sister a light bonk on the head for even thinking that would go smoothly.

The dragons can bring more stuff as long as it isn't taken forcefully from my empire. I don't care where they get it, as long as it isn't from my citizens… or cause some big ass monster to show up looking for its doll… oh please don't piss off something that's bigger than you guys, I don't need Godzilla showing up wanting his limited edition whatever back…

The red dragoness looked around, with no large brood chamber set aside for her. Selene sighed and decided to show some mercy, given she had been a little bit of a bitch towards. "You, this way."

"That's the copper brood."

"So what? I don't see any copper dragons in this group. We'll build more branching chambers as we go." The dragoness pointed with a claw at the writing on the wall next to the supposed new home. It must have meant copper or platinum in draconic. "Oh, for fuck's sake…" the stone that the etching was on was ripped from the wall and knocked to the ground with {Molecular Reformation}. "Happy?! There, home. No one will take it and say it belongs to someone else. Empress's orders." The creature didn't know what to say. This human took full control of the Eyrie, didn't even care about what used to belong to whom. They now had a home, though the question now crept up… why didn't they have one before this?

"Each chamber is made with the proper-" promptly cut off by the flustered dev.

"WE HAVE AIR CONDITIONING HERE!" Selene snapped at her. "Seriously! What, do you want to live near the core of the fucking planet?! Ice?! We can get a freezer in here or something! Pretty sure that's fifty floors down! They just excavated all of that rubble! Pick one! I mean come on! This is now yours! I'm giving it to you!"

"Narastrael" Zaza said as the red dragon looked up to the gold. From what the dev could remember, reds were supposed to hate gold, silver and copper. However, there were some tales of good red dragons that completely flipped the alignment system on its head. This might have been one of those cases.

"Fine… I accept."

"Once the coppers drifters and, if the ancients allow it, a platinum arrives, you'll provide a new chamber for them, yes?" Zaza asked the empress.

"Alright, fine, sure, whatever… wait, when they arrive? Where the… never mind, I'll get an administrator over here to answer questions and put you all through orientation." She didn't want to inform them that they weren't that high on her priority list and didn't want to sound even more like an annoyed stuck up bitch, doing her best to stay professional despite her outburst.

"Orientation?" the gold dragon asked.

"Yeah, you know, laws of the empire, rules, policies, what your rights are as… as… citizens… probably would be a good idea to hold some sort of class about this… and have you all shapeshift for it…" Selene looked around and saw the adult wyrms walk out of their chambers, the eggs placed down as they got a chance to explore a little bit. It felt like her first true immigrants coming in getting their green cards.

No national anthem to learn, no pledge of allegiance, probably should have them taught how to spell in at least one of the many languages here… even if it isn't English, I don't want to try and figure out what the hell draconic translates into on paper… Erina would talk my ear off…

"The benefits."

"Right. If you're hurt or sick, provided you can't use some sort of magic to heal, hospitals and clinics are free, etcetera etcetera, you'll get the rundown a little later. I have a question though… well, two questions now that I need answered as your empress." Nara and Zaza both stood there in full scaled form, looking at each other. They weren't as scary as anyone thought, at least the ones willing to talk and not eat something smaller than them. "First, why were you needing to find a new home in the first place? We know which direction you all flew from, it sure as hell wasn't from this continent. That's pretty far from what we can see. Without that air stream from the islands and that teleport, we saw that by the way, it would have taken six hours by jet, I know this because I've been to Hawaii. Running from something?" Nara glared at her and huffed. "It was a question, cool it. This lets me know if we need to be prepared for whatever is behind you."

"A kingdom that had been reborn into a golden era decided to surrender to another. We lived there for a time, but could not accept the new ruler, an undead of incredible power with beings from his crypt enforcing his will. We had heard rumors that this would come to pass, though not with such a dramatic showing of force in such a short amount of time."

"Showing of force? Your kingdom got conquered?" Nara grunted and stormed into her chamber, not wanting to hear anymore. It was painful it seemed to hear of her home cooperating with the undead.

"What we heard was that they manipulated others for their own ends. Those rumors were apparently very old, as they had since grown in strength and were just as capable with an all-out war through vassal countries and a growing army of undead instead of manipulation. Now, we are here, hoping to somehow rebuild our reputation. I believe you humans would call us… outcasts" Zaza explained.

"I believe the term is refugees, not outcasts. Sorry to say this, but from what I can find out, your racial reputation is shit around here. Dragons do not care about anyone but themselves, that's what we've all figured so far. You're going to need to prove this false."

"The few cause problems for the many, word travels fast from those very actions as they tend to let one survivor escape to warn others. No, it is not, but it matters little when we have such difficulty changing that. Politics amongst us is… strenuous at best, violent at worst, especially when alliances are few and far between; the fact we breed slowly and live long lives is also a factor, making it difficult to recuperate any losses in a fight. Most of our kind are solitary as well. There have only ever been two kingdoms that had dragons have direct connection with the government, one being to the far east. Our… misuse of wild magic has played a factor into how others see us though."

That basically means there are villains ruining it for the rest of them, just like us humans. One acts like a dick, they're all dicks to us. Stereotypes, I'll squash mine, thankfully. I really didn't want to keep thinking they were all like the previous four idiots. Regarding their politics, I kind of feel sorry for then; If one of them tries to show mercy or kindness, it can potentially get others to treat them poorly or take advantage of the situation. It's like a bunch of high school girls picking on the one that isn't popular, diving on any perceived weakness. Narastrael probably is treated as inferior in any other red's eyes, might even be killed. I'll go easy on her…

"So, you ran… flew… up here with… what is this… twenty?"

"Correct. The eggs the dwarves had, they were part of our broods, stolen by a notorious thief, an iron dragon."

"Yeah, I'm trying to figure that one out. I thought the iron brood were supposed to be renowned for their size and strength, not much of a thievy kind."

"One of my kind can be just the same if not properly educated or tempered. Narastrael is supposed to be at odds with Gelg, one of the silver brood, yet they find common ground. Do you not have many different criminals or heroes in your empire, from all walks of life?"

"Point taken, sorry. Now, my second question is… please please please, don't tell me you beat the crap out of the dwarves… I know you took your eggs back, but I hope the fortress isn't trashed…" the empress pleaded, bringing her hand up to her face and covering it in worry.

"They refused to give them back. There was no other option, they wanted to keep what didn't belong to them. We did our best to keep damage to a minimum though, only defending ourselves as we made our way in, not seeking out those who kept back. They did nothing to earn those eggs. You said you had met the thief and ended him. Is this true?"

"Yeah, he got to see an explosive I tend not to use often. I didn't take your kids. I looked at the logistics of taking care of the… broods, small broods at least, or batches in this case; wasn't worth it. Little tip, there are restrooms built here now. Please use them to relieve yourselves, because no one is going to shovel but you. Same goes for your chambers, try and keep things clean. I don't care about the hoards all of you start up, just don't steal from other citizens here, I do not care about anything outside of my borders. Please teach your… wyrmlings? Drakes? Potty train them, teach them how to flush, the little lever on the side." Zaza chuckled, a slight rumble from her mouth.

"And food?"

"Yeah, working on that. Please tell me you're all omnivores, it'll make this a lot easier." She remembered the iron dragon could eat the namesake metal, but beyond that… it was probably meat. The empress immediately tasked her super farm to get those seeds for the meat trees growing ASAP.

How much do they eat? Does the amount change if they shapeshift into a humanoid form, or do they wipe out whole feasts by themselves?

"You have… our thanks." Zaza turned around and slowly walked towards the winding rampway to explore her new home.

"Zaza." The gold dragoness turned her head and gazed at the empress. "There's more than just history as a reason you chose to be here. I'm guessing there's some sort of ancient magic or defenses, maybe a weapon you were looking to get. Answer truthfully, what is it? Better to answer and not have one of the research team pressing random buttons." There was a grumble heard as she turned away, mulling over the question asked of her.

"This Eyrie once tapped directly into a ley line of this world; it is where all dragon kind once started. As the broods grew, animosity came with the increasing numbers and less territory to share, eventually causing all to abandon it. This was neutral ground, protected by a mana barrier using the ley line; an undead, dracolich or otherwise, would shatter if it attacked the barrier. It has obviously fallen into ruin, more than likely not connected anymore or completely destroyed. I would like to assess if this is the case."

Whoa, an infinite mana barrier… probably to protect against the early dragons practicing wild magic along with the undead… keep the windows from being broken by a stray baseball in essence. I can't see anything else strong enough to attack an eyrie and surviving until players showed up. Could be interesting for a project.

"How long ago was this?"

"Long before humans were a race."

"Humans as in homo sapiens or humans as in the whole evolution ladder? Because there's a drastic difference in timeframe." Zaza let out a chuckle.

"Your… scientific naming convention for your people… is what I am referring to." Selene thought for a moment. That meant this eyrie had stood for over 350,000 years, maybe more. Considering the state she found it in, it didn't surprise her the place was mostly rubble unattended. It was interesting that parts of it had lasted the test of time, as she remembered her history courses in high school and college showing pictures of ancient human cities being little more than foundation lines in the ground now, the buildings long having been obliterated. It was a testament to the construction, or maybe there was fading magic that kept everything up and running. "… is this all you wish to speak about?"

"Uh… yes, though I may have more questions in the future. The draconologist team may ask a few as well… just try not to get annoyed with the leader, let her know if she's bothering you and the others too much" the empress explained, wincing a little at the end. Zaza nodded at her then continued down to see what else had been repaired.

Right… that's taken care of… dragons live in my empire now… this is going to take some getting used to… if I see one flying through the skies, don't have it shot down… oy…

"Oh fuck, the dwarves!" the empress mumbled out as she snapped her fingers and turned on her heel, running down the main entrance tunnel to reach a waiting helibot. For all she knew, they were barely holding on now. Her schedule just got sped up.