Winter 4994, 17 Ginmoth 

Shon leaned against the twisted bark of an ancient hollow tree. "No..." he breathed. But not quietly enough in the stillness of the swamp.

They all heard, but it was Ragther who actually grabbed the strap of Shon's sword and pulled him around to look back at them, "What is it? What happened?" Shon could see the worry buried in the depths of the Paladin's eyes, nearly hidden behind his constant anger. 

Shon smacked the Paladin's hand away and closed his eyes,

But Yua asked, "Lily?"

And Tuth asked, "Ryuuko?"

Shon growled, wishing they would just be quiet and wait. But answered, "Warlocks." and held up his free hand to silence them from asking anything more as he let his senses drift down his bond to Ryuuko. Once again, Lily had come face to face with a Warlock from her past. And he wasn't there to support her.  

He heard Ragther's voice as if from far away, "Warlocks are kidnapping Sorcerers? Why?" 

Tuth answered the Paladin, and Shon furrowed his brow, trying to follow both conversations at once. The one around him and the one around Ryuuko far away. "If they're the same ones as before, then these Warlocks are obsessed with dragons. There's a theory that Sorcerers get their magic from latent dragon blood." 

"Madness..." Ragther said. 

"That's kind of a thing with Warlocks, I hear," Yua quipped.

Shon growled, and they all shut up. He could hear Lily hiss and snarl and saw her back. He needed to keep moving. The longer they waited, the longer she would be left alone with them. "Let's go." he finally told the others. Opening his eyes and gesturing for Yua to lead them down the clearest and fastest path.

*** 

Lily could feel the blood drain from her face while her heart sped up to pound in her ears, nearly blocking the woman's following words, spoken in draconic, "You've come home! Oh, Ryuugen smiles on us still. Even if we can't use you here..." Ryuuko hissed and threw itself against the bars of its cage, its tail stretching out but not quite able to reach the Warlock. 

The Warlock looked down at the pseudodragon, and her brow furrowed, "What's that?" Oh no...

"Her familiar, Archmage Yarna..." the young man answered, lifting up the cage to better illuminate it in the light from the door. 

The Warlock scoffed, "She doesn't have a familiar. She doesn't need one! She isn't even human, let alone a Sorcerer." Both kidnappers gaped at the woman who let go of Lily's face and held her hand out to the young man, "Give me the box and kill the beast." 

Lily wanted to scream, but it came out as a mangled growl and hiss as she dove to crouch between the young man and the Warlock woman -Yarna. Lily's blood surged, and she could feel her energy simmering just below her skin. If she'd had her fire, the woman would already be burning.

Lily found her words as Yarna looked curiously down at her, "You people killed my treasures once before. I don't suppose you remember what happened then?" 

The woman blinked, unphased, and asked, "Is that what triggered it? Shaloon never did explain." Shaloon? Archmage Shaloon was alive? How? Lily growled past clenched teeth. Not for long...

Yarna shook her head and curled her fingers at the young man but said, "Well... the western Talon did manage to tame the Waterwyrm with kindness... She can keep the little companion, appropriate that it is a pseudodragon." The men exchanged curious and worried looks. They clearly didn't understand any of the draconic portions. Good for them, it meant they weren't Warlocks. 

The Archmage sighed, but in the next blink, her entire demeanor changed. She glared at the kidnappers, snapping, "The box NOW! Or you will become one of our guards." 

The young man fumbled in his shirt until Lily took Ryuuko's cage from him. He pulled out a small lead box, its lid held open, and passed it to the woman who snatched it violently from his fingers. She huffed and turned her back on them, stepping into the tower and waving them to follow with the hand holding the box, "You should have told us you had found the Firewyrm. You may stay for one night but must leave in the morning." 

The old man pushed Lily forward to follow and hissed under his breath to the younger, "What the hell is a fire-worm?" 

But the Warlock heard. She turned again and smiled at them all. Down the hall, a pair of hulking brutes -one half again the size of the other and both with blank eyes and mismatched skin stitched together- approached to take the antimagic box from her. Turning back, Yarna took a lock of Lily's golden hair and twisted it around her fingers, answering sweetly, "A Wyrm. Our life's work. A dragon."

Lily found her words, and her spunk, at the absurdity of these Warlocks' continued madness. Drawing strength from Ryuuko in her arms, she rolled her eyes, groaning, "Not that again. Do I seriously look like a dragon to you?" She held up Ryuuko's cage to compare their features -and so it could hiss at the Warlock again- "And why would you even need to keep doing... whatever the hell it is you're doing, if I was?"

"Oh, you poor thing... of course, you are. You five are our greatest success!" The woman cooed. But then her eyes snapped to the kidnappers. She pointed to a door just off the entrance. "You two, don't leave your room until dawn." Then back at Lily, gentle once more and in draconic, "The polymorph wasn't even that well done. Just look at you. But I suppose that is to be expected when dealing with the magic resistance of even a newly hatched dragon... In the end, it worked to our advantage. Now we have an endless supply of dragon samples." 

She grinned at Lily like an indulgent mother and moved to hook her arm like a friend, pulling Lily forward to walk down the short hall to the spiral stairs in the middle of the tower. The two flesh golems trailed behind, keeping her in the antimagic field. Lily gritted her teeth, wishing she could burn the woman's arm off. But even if she could kill the Warlock without her magic, she wasn't sure she could handle the two flesh golems without her staff. And Lily had no idea how many more enemies there might be. Or how far back her companions were. 

Archmage Yarna walked with Lily down the spiral stairs, and Lily tried to sort through the hundreds of questions she had. She wasn't even sure she could believe any of the answers this Warlock might give. Still, she also didn't know when she might get the opportunity to discover more about them. Or herself. Ryuuko whistled and twittered in its cage, and she decided to stay on mission. For now, "So what do you want Sorcerers for? What do you plan to do with us?"

Despite Lily asking in common, Yarna continued to speak to her in draconic, "Us? Oh my dear, we can't use you for our work here. The Sorcerers are not as pure as you, but they are at least capable of reproduction. They only have one type of dragon blood, you see. We were really hoping that you would be of a red's descent so you might partner with the male we acquired. But that was before we knew it was you! This is better. We will send you to the Central Talon. From there, they can send your samples to all the others for their various research." 

Lily's head swam. In her confusion, she stuttered in draconic, "What... Capable of... reproduction? One type of blood... I don't..." She remembered Shon running his fingers through her hair, 'gold...' but her scales were red.

The Warlock pat her arm soothingly and continued to take her down the tightly twisting spiral stairs. "I don't suppose they explained it to you. You were so young when you left us.You are a mix. Equal parts gold and red dragon. And like a horse and donkey, you five are unable to procreate." She shrugged as though the news that Lily was incapable of producing children should mean nothing to her. "So making more of you would be a pointless waste of resources and lives. We already sacrificed so many just to make the five of you!" 

Yarna stopped walking at the base of the stairs, deep underground, and pat Lily soothingly on the arm again, "Not that you are completely useless, my dear. You are a dragon, after all, and your hair and scales, at least, manifest mostly one genome. Without you, we would have to drain an entire Sorcerer to distill their blood down to the worth of a single scale."

"Sorce..." Lily swallowed, her head spinning, "Sorcerers have dragon blood?" What was she saying? There was no way she could believe anything this mad woman said. Yet, it didn't feel like a lie...

The Warlock actually laughed. She let go of Lily's arm to grab a string of keys, unlocking the door that led to the basement labs, "How else do you think humans could have elemental magic?"

"You're mad..." Lily whispered,

Yarna shrugged, "Not quite yet. I still have a few more years of usefulness to Ryuugen in me yet..." 

She needed to keep the woman talking, needed to learn more. And keep herself from thinking too much about what had already been said, "There are more? Like me?" 

The Archmage laughed, "Of course. It would be foolish only to bring back fire. All the dragons must return to maintain the balance."

The hall beyond the door looked too much like the one from Lily's childhood. Windowless, straight, and lined with doors on either side. She thought that if she turned around, she might actually find Brom and Ran behind her and not the two monstrosities escorting them. It took all of Lily's will and Ryuuko's scaled cheek nuzzling against her hand to make her put one foot in front of the other.

Lily focused on the differences... At her tower, her room had been just off the stairway in the basement, and the hall, this hall, didn't have a door. The stone was the same, but the air here didn't smell like animal musk or straw bedding as hers had. Here the doors were all kept closed, whereas hers were often left open for her to glance in as she ran past from her room to that of her treasures. It wasn't the same... And neither was she. Lily squared her shoulders. She'd come here willingly, knowing that whoever was taking the city's Sorcerers would want to keep her prisoner. The fact that they were actually the same Warlocks who'd kept her before didn't matter. The plan hadn't changed.

Yarna stopped in front of one of many doors and took out her keys again, continuing to speak as if to herself. "If only Inryuu and Yoryuu's brood could mix properly. Though I suppose the gods themselves would have found it sacrilegious. No one suspected it could work. They're supposed to be opposites after all. Morndancer was already mad. Or so we believed. We're lucky to have mules..."  

She swung the door open and stepped aside. Lily didn't move, but one of the golems pushed her, its enhanced strength enough to send her stumbling in. "Wait!" Lily called, spinning around to face the Warlock once more. 

But the Yarna shook her head, "If you agree to work with the Central Talon, you will learn more. Until then, I'll have the apprentices prepare a collar for you and keep this here..." She waved the smaller of the flesh golems with the lead box to stand beside the door, "I'm sorry we can't give you your own room, but this will have to do." She closed the door in Lily's face.

Lily's knees gave out. Ryuuko gave a long low whistle, and she opened its cage with trembling fingers, whispering, "Ryuuko... if you understood any of that... Please... Don't tell Shon." The pseudodragon twittered, crawling out of the cage and nuzzling Lily's scaled cheek. 

Someone spoke, "I'm going to kill that woman." Lily stood and turned to see a woman sitting in a high-backed, comfortably stuffed chair. She wore a long gown that must have been fine at one point but was now nearly as filthy and ragged looking as the tiny cat in her lap. On her wrist was a thick bracelet of brass studded with blue sapphires. She twisted the bauble and continued, "Assuming my brother doesn't get to her first." She had dark chocolate brown hair and gray eyes the same as Ragther, and studied Lily as though examining an underfed horse, "Please tell me you aren't a crier..." 

Lily blinked, but she hadn't cried, and wouldn't, not in front of the Warlock and not in front of this noble either. She tilted her head at the woman, "You're Raina..."

"Lady Raina, Duchess of-"

"Yep, definitely Ragther's sister." Lily interrupted. She scanned the room. It was small, only ten feet square, so the antimagic field would reach even to the corners through the stone walls. Lily grinned when she saw the four-poster bed with its green hangings. Jumping onto the mattress, she examined the poles that stretched from the foot of the bed to the headboard. Not great, but they would serve. "I'm here to save you. And all the others too." 

Raina stood as Lily started to smack one end of a pole with the heel of her hand until it broke. She scoffed, "You're doing a fine job of it." 

"I know, right?" Lily said cheerfully, "It was my idea to get taken. They-" she wrenched on the pole, "have- no- idea-" the pole broke free, spilling the curtains onto the floor. Lily spun the makeshift staff and hopped down from the bed, Ryuuko twittering its approval from its perch on the headboard as she finished, "how to handle someone who doesn't need their magic."

"You're as mad as they are," Raina said, her cat hissing at her feet.

"Oh, I'm furious. Livid even." Lily agreed with a smiling nod.

The noble growled, "They have golems. You need magic to even begin to damage them." 

"Nope," Lily countered, spinning the staff again and relaxing into the motion. Her fire might be gone, but she still had her energy, her ki, that Master Velona had trained her to control and channel. The discipline had made Lily into a more powerful Sorcerer. And it would work as well for the Monk's student as it did for the magicless Monk.

Lily exhaled her life energy into the sick and swung it at the Lady Raina, stopping the staff just before hitting the noble across the neck. Then Lily rested the wood lightly against Raina's skin. She gasped, her cat hissing again. 

"You can feel it, can't you? The same energy we use to direct our magic can empower weapons even without it." Lily explained, bringing back her staff and tapping it on the ground. Cocking her hip with a satisfied grin, she added, "Your brother and my team are on their way, but I don't really feel like waiting for them..." She let the sentence trail off, watching the noblewoman while Ryuuko chittered down at her angry cat.

Raina picked up the hissing feline and stroked its ugly flat head lovingly, then met Lily's eyes with a wicked smile, "I want that Warlock. Yarna." 

"There are others?" Lily asked.

The Lady nodded, "Two apprentices, one Journeyman, and another Archmage." 

Lily grinned, "Good. I'll get my answers from them instead." 

Raina took a moment to study Lily again, her gaze holding considerably more respect than the last time, "What's your name?" She asked.

"Lily,"

"Lovely," she turned back for her chair and sat upon it like a throne, "I think I might like you, Lily. What's the plan?"

Lily giggled. She most definitely liked the Lady Raina. Sitting on the foot of the bed, Lily was ready to get to work. She would worry about everything the Warlock had said later. Once she was free again. Until then, she would push it all into the back of her mind. Compartmentalize and focus on the task at hand, "So, what all is guarding the tower beside the Warlocks themselves...?"

***

The party moved in silence, though Shon could tell they had questions. He'd stopped trying to listen in through Ryuuko's ears when the Warlock woman and Lily continued speaking in a language he couldn't understand. Now he focused only on following the link's direction until the ground slowly started to slope up and dry off. 

When the remnants of a stone wall came into sight, Yua held her light stone high and Ragther led them through the broken gates into what remained of the tsunami drowned town. Shon pointed the way to the tower in the distance, backlit by the moon and stars. 

"Do you think they'll have guards?" Tuth whispered. Ragther growled but didn't snap the Mage's head off. Shon nodded while Yua held her stone a little higher, causing the shadows to dance in the crevasse of the ruined buildings.

As they drew closer to the base of the tower, the Paladin shifted from glaring at it to looking at the darkness around them. "There is death here..." He swung his shield off his back and took his flail in his right hand, its clinking chain sounding loud in the unnatural silence. The shadows moved, and a moan deeper than the wind was answered by more all around.

"Go... Go!" Ragther shouted. The night surged, and the first attacker lurched into the light, swinging wildly at Yua and stumbling past her as she twisted away. It had been a man. His skin was drawn tight over his bones, and his jaw hung limp, his eyes staring unseeing into the distance. His hair had fallen out in patches, and his neck gaped open. His throat slit. The undead had no weapon but didn't need one as it turned to swipe at Tuth with long broken nails and superhuman strength. 

The Mage squeaked, but Shon was there in a flash, drawing his sword to slash it from shoulder to hip, then kicking the zombie in the chest and sending it tumbling away with a crushed ribcage. It lurched back to its feet, and more moved into the light. They weren't as fearsome as thinking monsters, but they didn't feel pain and could only be truly destroyed by those with divine power. And in this case, there seemed to be a swarm of them...

"Run, damn you! To the tower!" Ragther bellowed at them, baring his shield at the horde and snarling, "By the might of Horsa, I banish thee!" Red light flowed out from between the creases of the Paladin's armor and down his arm before projecting out of his shield, emblazoned with the symbol of his god. The light slammed into the moving corpses as though it were physical, sending the first few crashing to the ground and the next few stumbling back. 

A golden light lifted from the downed undead and floated to the sky like smoke. They didn't get back up. But the rest surged forward again. 

"A window!" Tuth called, pointing up three stories. 

The Ranger drew her bow, but Shon held a out hand to stop her as he sliced the reaching arm off another zombie, "Save your arrows and get up there." he ordered. He might not be able to destroy them as Ragther could, but Shon could at least incapacitate them. Taking off their arms and heads while the Paladin crushed them with his divine flail, sending their souls off to the heavenly planes. 

"I got it," Tuth said, pulling out a rope and chanting over it.

Shon couldn't watch the Mage's spell, but he trusted the young man to know what he was doing and a moment later was rewarded for his faith when Tuth called out, "Yua, let's go." He could hear the scraping of their boots on the stone wall as the two climbed up the rope while Shon and Ragther backed up to guard their retreat. 

The Paladin swept his flail in front of him, taking another zombie's face off before his shield sagged ever so slightly. He breathed, "No... The Sorcerers..." a woman staggered forward to claw at the Paladin, and Shon recognized her face from the files. This was why the Clerics couldn't find the Sorcerer's souls, why they'd presumed, falsely, that they were all still alive.

Ragther snarled and pushed the woman back with his shield, "Go, soldier!" he ordered Shon, then dropped his shield. Shon jumped to grab the rope but looked back as he climbed. The Paladin lifted his holy symbol from his neck. Another blast of red light, greater than before, washed over the horde of undead. Dropping many to the ground five deep but illuminating the veritable army of them beyond.

Shon made the sill and pulled himself up before turning to grab the rope. Below, Ragther slung his shield back over his shoulder and started climbing. Shon tugged from above, speeding the armored man's ascent. 

Ragther rolled into the room and collapsed against the wall, trying to catch his breath, "I'll kill all of them... Every one of them..." he gasped. 

Shon nodded, breathing slowly to regain his strength after lifting the grown man in full plate armor. Yet another reason not to wear the cumbersome stuff.

They were in a wedge-shaped bedroom, with the door in the point, towards the center of the tower, well-appointed but plain, it had a tall wardrobe, full-length mirror, and single bed. 

Tuth stood before the mirror but when the door opened he was the first to call a warning to the others. Shon reached for his sword, but Yua fired off an arrow first, pinning the man's empty sleeve to the doorframe. The Warlock was too shocked to respond, and Tuth managed to move faster than either Shon or Ragther, lifting his hand and blowing a puff of dust in the man's face. 

The man coughed and struggled to lift his only arm, but his spell turned to a snore as he sagged to the ground, still held half suspended by the arrow in his robe. 

Ragther surged to his feet with a growl and reached for his flail, but Shon held him back with one cold hand. Yua moved forward to wrench her arrow from the wood and close the door while Tuth crouched down to look at the Warlock's face.

"Hey... Is it just me, or is this the same guy from the Laughing Pony tribe?" the Mage asked. 

Yua grinned, "Looks like Master Velona got his arm after all." 

"He dies," Ragther stated, pushing past Shon until Shon grabbed him by the shoulder to stop him.

The Paladin snarled, bringing his nose right up to Shon's. Shon didn't blink, "Not yet." he said coldly, waiting until Ragther looked away before he retrieved the rope and moved to the Warlock. 

He tied the man about the neck then down to bind his wrist to his ankles. Shon checked the bindings one more time, nodding to Ragther, who set his flail to spinning, then slapped the Warlock awake.

It took Shon slapping him twice, then grabbing his face with an icy hand to wake him. He jerked violently and flinched as the motion tightened the rope around his neck, making him cough and choke. 

"How many are you?" Yua asked while Shon held the man's terrified eyes with his own. 

He trembled, his entire body shaking, causing the rope to rub against his skin, already starting to chafe, "Fi... Five..." he stuttered. 

"And the Sorcerers?" Ragther barked, his flail still spinning, "If you turned my sister into one of those abominations..." He let the threat go unfinished. 

Tuth didn't, "Then you will lose your other arm and wish we'd killed you." Shon nearly broke eye contact to look at the Mage. He'd never heard the young man sound so disgusted or angry, "Where is Lily?" 

"Wh... Who?" the Warlock asked.

Shon's growl came from deep in his chest. He'd never wanted to refer to Lily as such but said, "The Firewyrm." 

Ragther wouldn't be distracted, "My citizens and the Lady Raina, where are they, and what is guarding them?" 

The Warlock closed his eyes with a whimper, and Ragther snarled, slamming his flail down to embed in the ground beside the man's legs, cracking the stone, "Where!?" 

"The basement!" the man squealed, his voice cracking like the stone, "The subjects and the Firewyrm are in the basement. They are unharmed. Please..." 

Ragther pulled his weapon back and made to swing again, but Shon lifted his arm, letting the chain wrap around to stop it from caving the Warlock's head in. He glared at Ragther, "We need him alive for questioning if we can't take any of the others."

Yua rested a hand on Ragther's to keep him from wrenching Shon's tangled arm back with his flail, "You can execute him after a trial." 

Ragther let his hand drop, and the chain slipped from Shon's arm. Shon shook out his hand and grabbed the Warlock by the rope, wrenching it back and causing him to bow back and cough, "What is guarding them?" 

"Golems-" the Warlock wheezed, "Flesh golems-" 

"Cathbad's veiny staff..." Yua cursed in a whisper. 

Tuth reached out to ease Shon's hand, braving the man's cold and speaking to the Warlock, "Why take Sorcerers?" 

The Warlock struggled to catch his breath but answered, "To breed dragons... We have to bring them back, or the world will be destroyed, if not by the storms then by Ryuu-" 

"Breed!?" Ragther roared. He lunged past Shon and Yua and grabbed the Warlock by the face, lifting him off the ground with divine enhanced strength, spending more of his magic in his wrath. "I'll take your balls myself and feed them to you if you've so much as touched my sister." 

The Warlock screamed into Ragther's palm and tried to say something. The Paladin dropped him, and he attempted to curl into a ball only for the motion to choke him again. He coughed and spoke fast, "We didn't. We couldn't. We didn't have another earth male compatible. We-"

"Enough." Shon's order silenced the Warlock and stilled Ragther's arm as it lifted his flail again. With precision in both pressure and technique, Shon struck the man on the back of the head, knocking him cold. 

He stood, and Yua moved to lift the Warlock, gesturing for Tuth to help her lock him away in the wardrobe. Shon addressed Ragther, the Paladin was fairly vibrating with rage, "We know where they are and that she is safe. Control yourself, Sir." 

Ragther looked away. "They have defiled my peoples land and very souls. Horsa will see they pay." He took a calming breath and muttered a prayer before looking at Shon again, "Thank you, Staff Sergeant."

Shon nodded, and Ragther rolled his shoulders before moving for Yua and Tuth, "Your arrows, Ranger. If we are facing constructs, I will need to bless them..." Shon moved for the door to wait for them, anxious to get down to the basement before Lily could beat them to getting a shot at these monsters in human skin.