Dragon Gods Reign

[Crown city]

Three days later the group made their way through the halls of the palace after Karrazil asked them to attend the next meeting. Allaire and Jennia were both wearing their armor while Darganth only used a metal one he created spontaneously.

The past few days they had all been busy, with Darganth focusing much of his attention on enchanting the pieces further. This brought them firmly into the classification of artifacts, fulfilling now not only the requirement of innate enchantments but also having enough of its magical properties activated.

Compared to inactive artifacts like the pieces were before this was a significant difference. While these inactive ones are still a step above regular magic items, artifacts show their true worth in harmonizing with enchantments and empowering them.

Of course, it's by no means a simple task to find which enchantments work on a particular piece, but Darganth was aided by the fact that a majority of the material was from his own body and he was thus very familiar with them. Adding onto that their excellent compatibilities and he had little real trouble with it, something that would likely drive many other mages to madness.

Like this, they made their way towards the meeting place without haste, and under the constant envious looks of the mana users they passed. The usage of dragon materials in general would draw attention and in such an amount it was even more so the case. Luckily no one got any ideas and thus they soon reached their destination without a problem.

Walking through the open door that leads to the meeting room, they found themselves at the receiving end of countless gazes. Ignoring these, they sat down on three empty chairs that stood around the table in the room's center.

On there lay a map of the entire mountain range with troops and important locations highlighted. It didn't even take them a second glance at it to notice how bad the situation was, with nearly the entire mountain range being controlled by the rebellious group.

But despite this obvious advantage in pure personnel and owned territory, the map made one thing above all else clear and that was that the current state was a clear stalemate. With both sides having roughly the same number of mythical ranks, a bit under forty for each, the defensive surrounding the capital would easily stop even the full enemy force.

Adding onto that the low production of crossbows and ballista ammunition, as well as of the weapons themselves, outside of the capital, it was easy to guess how the war would go. A slow victory that would likely take years and likely millions of lives. During this time trade would also be close to impossible, damaging the kingdom for a long time to come.

The gathered dwarfs were meanwhile busily discussing their plans, though their insistence to stick to their original position made it difficult to achieve anything.

“I don't agree.” One said, “If we manage to reopen any stable routes to the outside this rebellion would soon be over, so why destroy the entire path?”

“And how do you want to hold it? Our soldiers are outnumbered at least ten to one, we can't hope to also man that fortress. Not to mention the difficulties taking it in the first place.”

“Did I mention taking it now?”

“Why are we even discussing this, you said it yourself. We have too few men, so let them waste some on useless forts instead of making them redundant by blowing the passes. And as we can't take them we can't do anything.” A third person intervened.

At this proposition the proponents of both previous ideas became outraged, shouting at the newcomer as a united front without caring whether their words made sense.

“And do nothing? Preposterous.”

“Yes, let's directly abandon our outposts then they will waste even more men.”

“If you don't want to make decisions just say so and leave.”

Faced with this blowback the man just sank further into his chair while sighing. Instead of attempting to partake in the senseless shouting, he chose to wait in silence while looking towards Karrazil who sat at the end of the table, clearly similarly annoyed at the behavior.

Darganth himself also had no intentions of intervening as he could already expect what kind of reaction he would get when they react like this to the suggestions of a fellow dwarf. Instead, he chose to take a closer look at the map on the table, mentally noting where he could do the most damage.

The shouting continued for some time but soon those gathered perked up one by one. Quickly there were only a handful people still ignorant and at the same time the door at the back of the room swung open.

When they saw the king walking into the room, flanked by two mythical ranks, even the last person became silent. The only thing audible in this was the breath of relief from Karrazil.

“My brother informed me that you can't agree on anything so I decided to intervene. Make your points and decided quickly, I don't want this to drag on longer than necessary.” He said, walking towards the head of the table.

By the time he arrived, Karrazil already stood behind the chair on which he originally sat, allowing his brother to take it instead.

Silently letting his gaze wander over those present, not bothering to hide his mythical rank pressure, Kheduil waited for the first person to speak up.

But for the first full minute, nobody did. Instead, most of the gathered were still busy processing his sudden entry. And it wasn't necessarily helpful for him to be a mythical rank as despite being a mage that had little combat experience, he carried a suffocating presence with him.

“Your majesty, according to my estimates we lack the men to conduct any significant offensive operations. Thus I believe that any discussions of those should be postponed until they could be implemented.” The man who previously interjected into the shouting said.

And while the two previous groups both silently screamed outraged, now with the king's presence they just kept silent. This brought a small smile to those not affiliated with either, reigniting their hopes for a constructive discussion.

“While it seems sound, my knowledge regarding military matters is rudimentary at best so direct your request to your peers. I am only overseeing everything.” The king just said.

Prompted by this the man turned to the gathered officials. Eying their reactions, his mood slowly took a turn for the worse.

But compared to before he wasn't rebuked as harshly, instead one of the men who had previously argued for the path's destruction stood up.

“Then what do you propose instead?” He asked.

“To focus on the western edges of the territory we control. It will threaten their positions there and hopefully force them to act more reservedly. So instead of trying to win a quick victory, we play the long game as every individual that makes it through their blockade is a win for us.” The man argued.

“Something that this doesn't necessarily become more likely through this.”

“Yes, but it holds little risk.” He retorted.

With nothing to answer to this his opposite stayed silent at this. Noticing it, he let his gaze wander through the crowd once more, receiving a far better reception than last time. With this confirmation emboldening him, he continued.

“Unless someone has an idea for which we have the men, I would propose following through with my plans. Objections?” He asked.

His words were met with total silence, prompting Kheduil to speak up.

“Then it's decided where we will send the new recruits. What's next?” He asked.

“Yes, your majesty. Next up is the question of where the help of our new friends over there would be best utilized.” One man said, motioning towards Darganth.

This announcement brought a wave of murmur into the room.

“A dragon huh?” “But only at the advanced stage of third rank.” “Still, Miss Sarkia vouched for him.”

“Silence.” Kheduil said, stopping the room from further devolving into unconnected discussions. Once all eyes were on him he motioned to Karrazil who then spoke up.

“Why don't we first listen to your estimates, you seem to have made yourself familiar with the situation.” He asked Darganth.

Pulling his attention from the map, Darganth turned toward the head of the table with a small smile.

“As I see it there are three different ways I can help you. First, my knowledge regarding forging which I wouldn't recommend. Most of what I know concerning it revolves around and helps with the use of dragon scales, claws, and so on. And as I won't give you any it is the least valuable option even though my skill surpasses that of each and every last dwarf in the city.” He said.

While listening to his words Karrazil simply nodded, having already expected him to decline to create something with his own scales. And while he was slightly intrigued by the knowledge that Darganth held that made him believe his skill was superior, he quickly discarded this option.

Mainly so because he couldn't even be sure that they could learn and replicate it, making it a risky choice. And no matter whether it would help them in the long term, currently they were trying to win the war and everything else would come later.

“The second one would be magic formations. While the fortresses, at least from what I have seen, are packed with your kind's runes, they lack any other kind of magic. With my help, they would easily double or even triple the number of troops one fortress could hold back even with the same garrison.

It would have the advantage that the forts would hold these formations until they are destroyed, so potentially forever.”

Once he finished even Kheduil's presence couldn't keep the discussion from erupting, so enticing was the offer. Dwarves had relied on their own kind of rune magic for eons, owing to their abysmal skill in the traditional magics. This was most prominently seen in the fact that, apart from numbering

even fewer than the mages among the beastmen mythical ranks, the dwarfs had just one mythical rank mage who could use magic circles, namely Kheduil.

And with the spoken runes being able to invoke the same magic, serving as a substitute to the traditional chant, they were the go-to for most dwarfs. Even many warriors learn at least some of them for various reasons, the least of which were cultural reasons as they are just their ancient language.

Most species had such a magical language for that matter, but one of the dwarfs had the additional trait that its written form holds magic very well. Thus it was perfect for enchantments, though carving it onto weapons often proved difficult and time-consuming.

These thoughts and many others flew through Karrazil's mind but his thinking was interrupted when his brother had to silence the room once more.

“What do you think about this?” Kheduil asked him once it was silent.

“It's hard to make a decision. While yes, it sounds like a must-have for our defenses to fight even just twice the force compared to now, there were chances to do this in the past. Just during our father's reign, he denied the offer of a human concerning exactly this and with valid reasons.” He argued.

“I remember, 'the forts can hold back what they need to be able to hold back' is what he said.”

“Yes, they can already fight as many men as the number that could realistically attack them. Simultaneously, mythical ranks would just tear through them either way. And that is without even considering that it wouldn't really speed up the war, just give us a larger safety net.” Karrazil offered his analysis.

At his words more and more of the gathered started to nod until nearly all showed their agreement in one way or another. But a few still opposed, one of which soon stood up and voiced this.

“But wouldn't it also help against the dragons? The main reason that the previous kind declined the creation of dragon killer formations was that their price wasn't worth it.” He asked.

And while Karrazil took a moment to think about this, Darganth just sighed. His palpable disappointment calmed the nervousness of the room somewhat, his reaction to the mentioning of dragon killers not being as bad as some feared.

“What is it with humanoid species and their fascination for dragon killers? I have seen so many things purpose build to deal with my kind but nearly all were stupid, from the idea up. Even the youngest of dragons can transform if you forgot, so why do you still insist on weapons designed to only work against a large airborne creature?” He said in bewilderment.

“They are supposed to give the population some peace of mind, not deal with the threat.”

“I understand that, I just don't see the reason why they still get so much trust. And don't get me wrong, there are certainly people who know what they do and make weapons that pose a serious threat to all but the most ancient of dragons. But they are also effective against other large entities, dragon killer as a term is just a way to up-sell an often mediocre or downright bad weapon.”

“Then it seems that we both know that your direct power is of the most help to us. I will leave the choice of where to attack to you, just inform us when you need support.” Karrazil said and Darganth nodded.

Just as the meeting continued, he heard a telepathic message.

'If you could stay a moment after the meeting is over I would be thankful.'

Giving the king, who had sent it, a small nod, Darganth leaned back in his chair while only half listening to the rest of the talks while instead telepathically talking with Jennia and Allaire.