49

"The flesh of dragons," the guard laughed aloud, "Such creatures are rarely heard of even in the old books."

Good. My smirk widened into a smile. They didn't think of dragons as a real threat.

"Perhaps they're made of wyvern scales," the guard offered his hand.

He wanted my blade. I didn't know why, but I wouldn't hand them to him even if he begged. The smirk on my face died as murderous intent started radiating out from me. The guard looked more then a little concerned by the sudden change in demeanor.

"I gifted them to him after he saved my life," Sekka stopped the guard from losing that hand, "They are his property. The only things he owns. You would have an easier time getting him to hand over his still beating heart."

The guard retracted his hand slowly. Realizing the danger his hand was in. I watched him walk away slowly as Sekka moved on to head toward the next blacksmith. I looked at the tail one more time before moving on to follow Sekka. The complete stillness I was able to achieve when I wasn't walking tended to disturb most of the people that could see me.

I sped up a bit so I could catch up to Sekka since my speed was only enough to keep up with him, and not enough to catch up to him. I weaved around the people in the crowd with disturbing ease. I didn't jostle a single one of the people on the street. Accelerating even further so that I was practically running speed while still appearing to walk. I slowed suddenly when I came up behind Sekka.

Dropping to his speed with well practiced ease. A few of the people around me were somewhat surprised by the ease at which I dropped to Sekka's speed. It wasn't easy to changed your pace like that. I had done it with no warning, and no apparent change in my breathing or demeanor. I'd pulled in my murderous intent right after our discussion with the guard.

We'd pass by the blacksmith that owned Balock on our way back. The poison's effect would be at it's peak about the time night fell. Balock would appear to be in a near death state. Getting back everything he'd just spent on crystals, and then some would be a good motivation to part with a dying slave. I stopped by the door, and waited there to make it appear as if I was making sure the tail wasn't following.

The guards had relayed the information of what happened between me, and the tail. I could feel their eyes on me, and I wanted them to fall completely for my deception. Sekka went straight into his sales pitch without worrying about anything else. He was focused on the sale. I appeared to be focused on the outside of the building while truthfully my focus was split evenly between keeping an eye on Sekka, and watching the guards that were watching me with my spatial senses.

The part of me that was focused on Sekka even made it appear as if I was scanning the people outside for the tail that had been following me earlier. Truthfully good deception was cemented by the details. I would have smirked if I wasn't trying to appear like I was alert, and looking for threats. Sekka had started his negotiations in earnest. I still had a few more high quality elemental cores in my spatial storage armband.

Actually it was a horn ring, but it also worked as an armband. I had several of them in multiple colors that Bryce had made for me. He'd expressed an interest in making one for each of my horns eventually. The three I had were from the scales of each existing dragon. One from my own scales that I was wearing now.

One from Aurora's scales which was stored in my storage device. The last one was made from Copper's scales. The one made from Copper's scales had the lowest storage capacity. Aurora's was only slightly larger then Copper's. The one made from my scales was the largest by far.

An odd thing I noticed about the spatial storage devices was that anything in one device was automatically displaced into the device it was stored in. So anything I had in the two storage devices before I put them in the one made from my scales had suddenly appeared in the one made from my scales. It was almost as if being stored deactivated the spatial storage devices. It derailed any plans I might have had to store full spatial storage devices within other spatial storage devices. Maybe the dwarf we planned to purchase would have an idea about how we could fix that problem.

I rolled my shoulders slowly. If we could store full spatial storage devices within other spatial storage then we would get rid of any need for warehouses. If we couldn't then we'd just need to make sure to make properly secured storage rooms, and we had to make sure they were properly labeled. If our possible new dwarven ally was able to get around that problem we might be able to get away with hiding vast wealth in a very small area. Now that I thought about it, that might be risky as well.

Stealing the majority of our wealth would be vastly easier if we couldn't keep it's location secret. Then again. Keeping it in the open might be a good way to combat that problem. On the horns of powerful dragons for example. Granted that might be risky as well considering the fact that not all humans would trust dragons.

A great many would assume we were evil just because of the stigma against Archaics. Racism at it's finest only now it would be humans against anything that wasn't human. I frowned to myself quietly from by the door. I could feel it when the owner of this shop turned his attention to me. Even if it was only for a brief moment.