The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

"Hydra told me you asked to participate in the raid. Are you really all right with this, Ariom? You're sure?"

Ariom sighed. He'd already made up his mind, but the deep concern in his uncle's voice still made him hesitate a little. "I'm sure. Thenio doesn't have much time, and we'll be able to get to him faster if I go and help with the barriers and traps. I'll admit that it makes me uncomfortable...but if I just sit back and watch, and they can't get to him in time.... I don't want to have to deal with that. So this is the better of two bad options. That's all."

Uncle Bero stared silently at him for a moment. Then he closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "I understand. Just don't do anything reckless, all right? Humerus will never forgive you if you go off and get yourself killed after he worked so hard to protect you."

Ariom raised an eyebrow. "You mean he'll never forgive me if I get myself killed before he gets the new puppet I promised him."

"Well...yes. That, too," Uncle Bero admitted with a wry smile. Then he turned to Namyis. "Hydra said he assigned you to be on the rescue team with Ariom. So I guess I'll have to ask you to keep looking after him for a little while longer."

"Leave it to me!" she said brightly. "I'll bring him back in one piece—I promise. Maybe a little frozen...but definitely in one piece!"

"You...." Ariom gave her an exasperated look before turning back to his uncle. "How is Humerus? He didn't come back with you?"

"They were still finishing his treatment when I got your message. He wasn't badly hurt, so he should be fine once it's over. But he'll need to rest for a while. I decided it was better to just leave him at the guild to sleep until this mess gets sorted out. And speaking of sleep...." Uncle Bero looked dubiously at the groggy little dragon in Ariom's arms. "Iggy's not going on the raid, is he? I'm going to go see if Relisa needs any help distributing potions. I can take him with me."

Iggy’s eyes were half-closed, and his head was resting against Ariom's arm. But he suddenly lifted it at Uncle Bero's words, his ears pricked in alarm. "No! I want to stay with Ariom! I want to help save Thenio!"

"I'm sorry, little guy. But you need to stay here," Ariom said, patting his back apologetically. "You're tired. You barely got any sleep. And do you remember how scary the ice mage's magic is when you're not wearing your collar? There are going to be lots and lots of battlemages with scary magic like hers—way too many for your collar to handle. It'll be really awful for you."

Iggy let out a whimper of protest, staring up at him with a miserable expression.

"You can keep helping me for a while, though," Ariom went on, rubbing the little dragon's head soothingly. "I need to go meet with the other enchanters to plan out how we're going to get through all those barriers. You can help us with that, all right?"

"Mmm...." Iggy's ears drooped, but he didn't argue any further.

"Good boy." Ariom gave the sad ears a gentle scratch. Then he looked back at Uncle Bero. "I'll bring him over to the supply distribution area before we leave."

After they parted with Uncle Bero, Ariom and Namyis continued following the Royal Guard staff member who had met them at the entrance. He led them to a room down the hall from the conference room they'd been in earlier. The door was closed, but the staff member knocked softly and then opened it, standing aside to let them enter and closing it quietly behind them.

It was a small meeting room with several people seated around a table that had familiar-looking enchantment diagrams spread out over it.

Namyis' expression brightened when she saw the room's occupants. "Ziryi! I wondered if you'd be here."

She was looking at a very petite woman with lemon yellow eyes and short, dark purple hair that spiked out in all directions. Did she have a lightning affinity? High-ranking lightning mages often had wildly misbehaved hair.

There were also three men in the room—two older ones and one who looked around Ariom's age. They were all wearing black combat suits with the Royal Guard's crest on them. They didn't seem surprised to see Namyis, but they looked curiously at Ariom. The younger man raised a cynical eyebrow as he looked at the sleepy Iggy.

"Crazy day isn't it?" The woman called Ziryi greeted Namyis with a wry smile and a small wave. She was wearing a Magic Corps-style combat suit—dark purple with a golden lightning bolt on the front. "I really wasn't planning to go on raids two nights in a row. But at least I got to go home and sleep after we got back to the capital. Have you been working all day?"

"Pretty much. And it's been fun, let me tell you." Namyis stuck out her tongue. "Exploding corpse...rampaging revenant...we even got hit with a poison lullaby. But I had a little bit of downtime and took some recovery medicine, so I'm still in okay shape." She turned and gestured toward Ariom. "This is Ariom Denifor, the enchanter I've been working with, and his adorable familiar, Iggy. Ariom, this is Ziryi Borosen. She's a battlemage, but she specializes in stealth missions and dealing with stuff like traps and barriers, so she works with the Royal Guard most of the time. She helped me go pick up our research materials last night."

"You're the one whose assistant was kidnapped along with Grandmaster Sephior, right?" Ziryi asked, giving Ariom a sympathetic look. "The commander told me you were going to be part of our rescue team." She nodded at the three men seated across the table from her. "These are Jahon Kobin, Tremis Nuronil, and Darios Okron. They're all Royal Guard barrier experts. They'll be on different teams during the raid, since we're going to be entering from a few different directions at once to divide their forces. But we're all here to compare notes on these enchantments. Have you had a chance to look over them?"

"Yes, I have."

Ariom went to an empty chair and set Iggy down on the table in front of it. Then he sat down himself and pulled out his copy of the enchantment diagrams. Namyis sat down in the chair next to his, in between him and Ziryi.

Ariom glanced around the table. "If the four of you work for the Royal Guard, then can I assume you're all familiar with the enchanting style that the Order of the Ravener typically uses?"

Ziryi and the two older men all nodded.

Darios, the younger man, scowled. "Of course we are. And the barriers and traps that are done in that style won't give us any problems. But most of these diagrams are done in a different style, in case you hadn't noticed. It's similar, but it's a lot more advanced."

"I had noticed, actually," Ariom said drily. "I'm just making sure that we all have the same basic understanding." He flipped through his papers. "I think we should start by looking at one of the simpler barriers, just to get everyone familiarized with the style. Then we can move on to some of the more complex ones."

Darios' scowl deepened. "What are you, a magic school professor? Are you some kind of high-level barrier expert? What makes you think you can lecture us about how to do our jobs?"

"Darios!" Jahon said in a chiding tone. He looked at Ariom. "I'm sorry. He's a talented enchanter, but he's a bit hotheaded...."

"He's just a civilian consultant, isn't he?" Darios snapped. "I get that his assistant got caught up in the kidnapping, but how does that give him the right to worm his way onto a raid team? Or to come in here and take charge of our meeting? Just who does he think he is?"

Ariom sighed. He really didn't have time for this....

He took out his certification badge and set it down on the table with a deliberately loud clack, making sure to place it so that the grandmaster's sigil would be clearly visible from where Darios was sitting.

There was a moment of silence while everyone stared at it. Even Iggy woke up enough to look between Ariom and the badge with a confused expression, obviously wondering what was going on.

"You want to know who I am?" Ariom said quietly. "Fine. I'll tell you. Grandmaster enchanter. Artisan necromancer. Artisan alchemist. Journeyman elementalist. I'm not a professor, but I do lecture at the Royal Academy a few times a year. And I'm not an expert on barriers, but I am an expert on Pre-War enchanting, and I've been studying the Order's enchanting techniques intensively for the past month." He tapped his finger on the enchanting diagram in front of him. "And I happen to have spent all day today analyzing this particular man's style. I won't pretend that I understand everything about it. But I still have more experience with it than anyone else here. So yes, I think I'm qualified to lead this discussion. Do you disagree?"

There was another silence. Darios was still staring at Ariom's badge with an awkward look on his face.

"As for how I ended up joining the raid team...well, I asked Hydra if I could participate, and he said yes. Simple as that. If you want to know exactly what his reasons were for agreeing, you'll have to ask him. But...."

Ariom hesitated and glanced sideways at Namyis. He really didn't want to say this next part in front of her. But he needed to put an end to this nonsense so they could get to work.

He let out a small sigh. "It was probably because he knows that I've practiced magic archery ever since I was a young child. And that I went through a pre-military combat training program. It was a long time ago, and I wouldn't say that I'm on the level of a combat wizard, but...well...let's just say that I've kept up on my training enough that I don't think I'll be a burden on the rest of the team."

"Pre-military training?" As expected, the annoying ice mage picked up on those words. "You...wanted to join the Magic Corps?"

"Yes. I did," Ariom said flatly, not looking at her. "But it didn't work out, and I went into enchanting instead. You have a problem with that?"

"No." Even without looking, he could tell from her voice that she was giving him one of her gentle smiles. "It's just reassuring to know that you have some previous training. I was a little worried about you going with us, since I've never seen you fight before."

Ariom snorted. Who did she think she was fooling? She was definitely going to pester him about this later....

"But speaking of fighting..." Namyis went on. "You really should get on with your barrier discussion, shouldn't you? We need to be ready to move out as soon as the team leaders finish their strategy meeting. Ariom's already proved his qualifications well enough, hasn't he? So you shouldn't need to question him any further?" She fixed Darios with a particularly sweet smile. "I mean...it would be a shame if I had to freeze somebody's mouth shut, now wouldn't it?"

Darios swallowed and gave a very forced-looking smile of his own. "Uh...yes...a shame...well." He cleared his throat and looked at Ariom. "So...we'll start with one of the simpler barriers, then? Which one do you recommend...?"

As they all shuffled through their papers to find the diagram that Ariom directed them to, Ariom himself glanced sideways at Namyis again.

She was irritating. And she liked to dump ice water on people. And threaten them with that creepy smile of hers. And he was dreading how much she was probably going to badger and tease him about his former military aspirations.

But...he had to admit that it really was useful to have her around sometimes....

Namyis was practically buzzing with curiosity about that little piece of information Ariom had let slip.

He had wanted to join the Magic Corps? Him? Ariom, the hater of all things military?

It was hard to believe. But she didn't think he'd say something like that if it weren't true.

So what happened? 'It didn't work out,' he'd said. What did that mean?

Whatever it was, it must have been pretty traumatic for him if he'd gone from being a hopeful recruit to not wanting anything to do with the military at all.

It wasn't easy to hold back all the questions she wanted to ask, but Namyis managed somehow. It really wasn't the time for that. Thenio's life was on the line, after all.

Besides...the look on Ariom's face told her that it was a very difficult topic for him. It needed to be approached carefully.

She liked to tease him. But she didn't want to hurt him.

The enchanters finally settled in and started going through the diagrams they'd gotten from Eteon. Letting Ariom take charge of the meeting wasn't a mistake. He could be a surprisingly good teacher when he felt like it. He led them through a careful analysis of the first, easier enchantment, explaining everything he'd learned about the Old One's techniques so far and inviting the others to share their ideas about parts he was still unsure of.

He even asked Iggy's opinion on several things. At first, the others seemed doubtful that a sleepy, half-grown dragon could give them any useful insights. And Ariom did have to translate whatever strange things he said into terms they could understand.... But they gradually started showing respect for the little dragon's magic instincts and taking his words more seriously.

Of course, Namyis didn't know that much about enchanting, so there was a lot of their conversation that she couldn't understand. But the dynamics of the group were interesting enough that she kept half-listening while she studied several maps of their target site that Ziryi had given her.

On the surface, it was a processing and distribution center for alchemical materials derived from low-level magic beasts. That wasn't much of a surprise. After demons, what the Order of the Ravener loved most was magic materials. They were heavily involved in illegal harvesting, poaching, and smuggling operations all over the continent. And a lot of their bases were built near alchemical markets or processing facilities.

The Royal Guard carried out strict inspections of such places, of course, which helped cut down on any illegal activities. But they still discovered large bases like this from time to time. The demon fanatics were a tenacious lot.

A base this size right in the capital city, though....

It was probably only possible because an Old One had been directly involved. But it was still a major headache for the Royal Guard. Poor Garem would be doing a lot of overtime work for the next few months.

Thenio and Grandmaster Sephior being kidnapped was actually a good thing for the Guard, in a way. With both Eteon and the Magic Corps taking such major roles, the base was discovered much sooner and would probably be cleared out much more easily than it would have otherwise.

The Guard staff had added the information they had on file to Eteon's magic drawings and had managed to compile a fairly complete layout of the building complex. Having this much information ahead of time was quite a luxury. The Order liked hiding their bases underground, making it difficult to scout them out. Most raids involved going in blind and hoping for the best.

It made Namyis wish she could have help from a mythic beast on all her missions.

They'd get more details on their assigned roles once the strategy meeting finished and their team assembled for a pre-mission briefing. But the general plan was for several larger teams to start attacking the base to draw the enemy to certain points, clearing a path for a small team of elites to rush into the area where Thenio and Grandmaster Sephior were probably being held—an underground research center. The building diagram showed that one floor of that facility had a number of small rooms that looked suspiciously like holding cells.

There was a good chance that there were more captives who needed rescuing in that place. But the two they knew about were their top priority.

No one wanted to find out what Eteon and Ki'shiu might do if they couldn't get Thenio out in time....

After about an hour, the door opened, causing everyone to stop talking and turn their heads toward it. But rather than a person, a large white tiger with silver stripes strolled elegantly into the room, followed by Kino the storm hound.

Poor, tired Iggy had been nodding off again, but he perked up at the sight of the two magic beasts. "Oh, it's Sala-cat. And the wind-dog."

"Sala?" Ariom sounded surprised. Then a look of realization crossed his face. "Ah...is Kathia on the rescue team?"

The tiger nodded. "Kathia is the team leader," she said in a deep, musical voice. "There aren't that many battlemages who've fought together with a proper magic archer. Hydra said he wanted to put you with someone who would understand your abilities."

Ariom made a face. "So that's who he was talking about..." he muttered.

"What's wrong with Kathia?" Namyis asked him, tilting her head. "She's nice, isn't she?"

Kathia Taiyal was one of her seniors in the first squad. She was a fifth-rank mirage mage, a bit low in power compared to most of the others. But her unusual fighting style made her quite a difficult opponent, even for higher-ranked battlemages. And her gentle, motherly personality made her well-liked by the rest of the squad.

Sala, a mist tiger, was Kathia's familiar.

"There's nothing wrong with her, exactly...." Ariom looked uncomfortable. "It's just...awkward." He sighed and turned back to Sala. "Is the strategy meeting over?"

"Not yet. They sent me to ask if you'd figured out a method to break through the outer barrier yet." Sala glanced over her shoulder at the storm hound standing quietly behind her. "Kino's going to be on the rescue team too, so he came with me."

"We've looked at most of the inner barrier types, but we haven't discussed the outer one yet." Ariom flipped through his papers, pulling out a large, complex-looking diagram. "I took a look at it earlier, though. And there are really only two ways to attack a high-powered barrier like this. The first one would be to overwhelm it with force. That's probably doable, but there are several downsides. It will take a lot of time, for one thing, which is something we can't really afford right now. And it will let the enemy know we're coming and give them a chance to prepare. It will also exhaust a lot of the battlemages' power. And there's a risk of damage to the surrounding properties."

Namyis nodded silently at his assessment. That would be the typical approach to getting through a high-powered perimeter barrier. And it was always a huge hassle.

"The second approach is better, though it's more difficult to pull off. That would be to hit the barrier in just the right way and temporarily disable it, then send a team in to take out the power supply. That's in the center of the property—it's marked on one of the maps Eteon gave us. But I don't think it will be too hard to get to as long as we have some aerial units."

"We do. We have a team that's going to provide support from the air while the raid is going on. We can send in a few of them." Sala fixed Ariom with her vivid blue eyes. "So, can you disable the barrier?"

Ariom nodded. "Yes. I think I can."

"You can? By yourself?" Darios gave him a skeptical look. "I realize you're a grandmaster enchanter and a magic archer and all...but enchanted arrows can only hold so much power. It won't be enough to take down a barrier of this size, even if you can figure out where to hit it."

Sala turned to him, narrowing her eyes and flattening her ears a little. "Didn't you hear what I said before? He's a proper magic archer. The real thing. Not one of those cheap imitations."

Darios blinked. "What's the difference...?"

The tiger flicked her striped tail in annoyance. "If you don't know, then be quiet. Maybe someone will be kind enough to explain it to you later." She turned back to Ariom. "So can we rely on you for this? You're confident?"

Ariom stared down at the enchantment diagram and didn't answer right away.

There was a moment of silence.

Then he looked at Iggy. "What do you think will happen if I cut this line, little guy?" he asked, pointing to a spot on the diagram.

Iggy looked at the paper, tilting his head and blinking sleepily. "Um...I think...that picture will fall down. And it will pull that one. And that one. Like a train, okay? They'll all fall down! But. It will get caught over here." He patted the diagram with one of his tiny paws. "And then they'll stop falling."

"Hmm." Ariom stared at the diagram again. Then he pointed to another spot. "What about this one? How long will the train go if it starts here?"

"I think...it will go...there. And then there. And then over there...." The little dragon craned his head, looking all around the diagram. "That train will go for a long time!" he said finally, looking up at Ariom and waving his tail a little. "Lots of pictures will fall down! Lots and lots!"

"Good." Ariom nodded and patted Iggy's back. Then he turned to Sala. "Yes. I'll definitely bring it down."