Chapter 32: Isekai Life & Dragon Myth

I looked around at my other party members. Voss just gave a helpless shrug. Enna was mopping her her scalp wound with a bit of fabric ripped off the lord’s satin cape. I looked back to Ashryn.

“Sorry, you’re going to have to back up. God of destruction sounds bad, but is it kinda bad or is it very bad?”

Ashryn looked pouty for a moment- was she annoyed with me?- before taking a deep breath. “The All-Fathered created the earth-goddess Cyona after Lathlys, the celestial goddess, proved too cold and distant, and Asanke the ocean goddess proved too tumultuous and willful. One of his first children with Cyona was Vaeus, the god of the forest.

“For a time the All-Father was proud of his third family, but Vaeus eventually fell in love with his mother, Cyona. He waited until the All-Father was away, settling a feud between Lathlys and Asanke, and forced himself on Cyona, covering her body with his. When the All-Father returned to Cyona and saw what was going on, he uttered a curse that was so powerful, Malgarath was born from it. Malgarath attacked Vaeus and Cyona both, scorching them, and the entire earth scorched and suffered.

“Eventually the All-Father felt that Cyona and Vaeus were punished enough for their transgressions against him, and empowered his servant, the First Knight Reyneid, to crush Malgarath and rid the world of his ruinous influence. Reyneid took up the holy sword Avenger, and struck down Malgarath. But because Malgarath was created from the All-Father’s curse, he was still technically born of the divine, and could not be destroyed by mortal man. Instead, while the God of Destruction was weakened, Reyneid uttered a prayer to Cyona, who gladly took her revenge on the marauding god and sealed him away.”

“While Malgarath has been sealed for thousands of years, his children, the red dragons born from where his blood was spilled by Reyneid, have remained, creating desolation and chaos wherever they fly.”

The tale was simple enough, if a little weird.

“So ... the All-Father is kind of a douchebag then?”

Ashryn grinned a little at that. “Yes, that’s why most people find worship of his children much more palatable.”

“So there’s a cult to this Malgarath guy in this city?” Voss asked tentatively.

I shrugged. “Seems that way. Though we might have just wiped out it’s real power ... we should examine these journals and such in more detail later.”

“Yeah, sure, are we gettin’ outta ‘ere yet?” Enna asked, “Ain’t you tired of bleedin’?”

To be honest, I had totally forgotten about my arm, despite having been cut nearly to the bone ... another convenience of my Heaven, I suppose.

We heading back downstairs after one last sweep of the top floor- there was nothing else that seemed to be valuable that wouldn’t be too awkward or heavy to carry. I did grab a sheet from a linen closet, though, and when we reached the main floor, I conscientiously wrapped up Ashryn’s landscape for it’s trip through the catacombs.

“We’re really takin’ that big ol’ thing?” Enna asked.

I shrugged. “It’s light enough for me to carry, and we have ropes to lower and lift the sacks of treasure anyway.”

As we filed downstairs, Katriana dashed out of the storage room to give me a hug, but stopped short. Her face went wan, and she gently touched my wounded shoulder. “Oh, Gods ... are you alright, Theodore? Th-this looks bad...”

“I’m fine,” I said, momentarily putting down the painting to rest against my leg, “Ashryn says she can take care of it in the morning. Come on, we have to go.”

Immediately, she rounded on Voss. “You promised you’d take care of him!”

“He’s the one who decided the best use for a wizard was to grab a fucking crowbill and come in swinging!” Voss growled back, “I promised I’d take care of him, but I’m not responsible if he puts himself into danger like an idiot!”

She looked back at me with a cutting glare. “Is that true!? How stupid can you be? You’re lucky to be alive! You know, I swore to protect you! I sworn on your damn cradle, and this is how you thank me!?”

I winced. “Yeah, it was stupid ... but what’s done is done. I was able to help everyone out, and I survived, okay? If you’re still mad later, you can take it out on me then.”

She silently seethed at me for awhile, before turning on her heel and marching back into the storeroom. There was the sound of snapping fabric, and she pushed the butler out of the room in front of her. “Make yourself useful and carry that painting! My brother needs to conserve his strength.”

Bekker gave me a bow and gently took the painting from me. “Please excuse me, sir. Yes, that’s a nasty wound, and if you’ll pardon the offer, sir, I am a deft hand with a needle. Once we’re to safety I’ll be only too happy to close that up, sir, so you’ll be somewhat more comfortable until the elven miss can heal you magically.”

“Uh, right,” I said, uncertain that a 60-something old man would be much better at hauling a painting around than I would be.

We headed together back into the storeroom, and lit another series of torches and distributed the sacks of loot around. We had four of Enna’s big bags heavy with gold, jewels, and all sorts of other valuables.

Enna went down into the catacombs first, and after declaring the area clear, Voss went down with a lit torch in his teeth. Disturbingly, the body of the squire we had dropped down there was gone, something unspeakable having dragged it into the shadows at some point during our manor invasion.

Next, we sent down our loot bags, which Enna carefully stacked to one side while Voss kept his spear pointed at the shadows. Then Katriana tied the end of the rope into a loop, and one by one myself, Bekker, and Calliope (who was, at this point, about as mobile as a stumbling drunk and with a similar slurred speech pattern) were lowered down. Next came the painting, lowered to Bekker lengthwise. Finally came Ashryn and then Katriana, shimmying down the rope like normal.

The last step was to douse the rope in oil and ignite it. It probably wouldn’t burn the manor down- Voss used his spear to hook the grating and pull it closed first. And there was nothing burnable near where the rope was tied- and it might hide the signs of our coming enough for us to avoid investigation.

We moved cautiously but deliberately through the catacombs, following our previous tracks in the mud. Enna took us on a brief detour at one point- two other carrion crawlers had arrived to devour the corpses of their fallen brethren- but be managed to make the grating to street level uninterrupted.

Thankfully, the grating was left open and our rope was still there. Voss was the first to clamber up the rope, followed again by Enna, and then we began the arduous process of hauling our treasure and our weaker party members up one at a time.

When finally we were all up and out of there (and Enna had recovered her rope, she had good instincts as an adventurer), we proceed to then limp our way back to the Lazy Ox.