The First Dragon of Marble

Chapter 14

“Hahahahahahahaha” Cowe laughs as I fall from the cliffside while I scream curses at him and suddenly the scene changes. Then I am in a HMMWV exchanging fire with the enemy with the .50 caliber on top when suddenly and IED goes off flipping me and landing in a dark hole as I fall out, I am back in the dungeon. I am facing kobolds alongside Noah and Abel who have red eyes and evil smiles. As I skewer a kobold with my spear, I am filled with the pain of a sword slashing my back. “You were played dumbass!” Noah yells as I fall into a hole of darkness and end up with the Ancient Wyvern staring down at me. The last thing I see is black sludge being sprayed on me as I am shaken awake.

Still thinking I am in the dream I unsheathe my knife from my back and bring it to the neck of the person who was touching me. I stare into their eyes ready to kill from my experience of waking in the dungeon with some random goblin trying to strangle me. I take ragged breaths and then I feel a hand on my cheek and my eyes focus on the present. I am staring into cyan and dark pink eyes. “Who the fuck is this?” I look closer and see long rabbit ears with cyan blue fur covering her face and body along with hair atop her head like a humans with the color of dark pink just like the color in her eyes. I close my eyes and breathe deep trying to control my breathing to think. Then the last few hours come back to me, and I immediately step back shaking looking at my hands.

“Did I almost kill the person who I except to be my partner? I have had nightmares since being here, but I didn’t know I was this bad. Fuck.” I look up to see the rabbit mink I bought from the slave trader who was still wrapped in my cloak. “I…I’m…so sorry. That has never happened before.” I say as I put the knife back in it sheathe on my belt. She struggles to get up from the bed only to fall back on her behind. Then she tries to say something only to have croaks come out. I sit down and wipe the cold sweat from my brow. I look out the window to see the sun dipping below the walls. “Have you eaten any of the soup or bread yet?” I ask her and she shakes her head. “Did I happen to wake you up from my dreams?” She timidly nods her head, and I sigh. “Haa…I’m sorry. Like I said I didn’t know I was that bad.” Once again, she tries to say something but to no avail. “Shh, don’t try to talk yet. We will have a proper conversation once you get back your strength. For now, lean back in the bed sitting up I’ll help you eat. You need to eat slowly, or your body will reject the intake of proper food.” I’m sure if I could see her skin under the fur she would be blushing.

I help her back on the bed and lean her in a sitting position against the bed frame. I grab the tray and set it on her lap. I begin feeding her as I finally introduce myself. I bring up a spoonful of soup to her mouth which opens to receive it. “My name is Ladon and as of right now I am an ‘E’ rank adventurer. Once you have your strength back, we will be doing jobs together.” I bring up the spoon again for her to eat as I continue, “That is if you want?” At this I see disbelief in her eyes. I chuckle tearing some bread for her and dip it in the soup. “I do not know your name yet, and I will wait to hear when you can speak again, but you are not a slave to me miss.” I get the cup of water and have her drink. “You are a person not a slave. When I went to the Easy Flower today, I did not intend to buy a slave, at least not yet. You see I do not necessarily agree with the way slavery is conducted. But when I arrived, I felt something draw me to you.” She looks at me confused as she took the soup from the spoon. “I know it sounds crazy, but the same feeling helped me conquer and escape a dungeon. So, I just couldn’t ignore. My mother told me that it was more than likely an instinct of our race but even she was not sure.” After staying silent for a few minutes feeding her she had finally finished the food, so I put the tray on the desk.

“The reason for me…acquiring you is because of said feeling.” I get up and stretch. “As you heal and gather your strength think about fighting by my side. If you decide that it would not be the life for you, fighting monsters and exploring the unknown, then I will figure something out. Do not worry though, I will not sell you to anyone and discard you, that I promise…Though I guess that doesn’t mean much to you yet.” I place my hand on my chin to think of something that could help put trust in me. “Hmm…” I make sure that I am staring straight into her eyes and say, “I have never told anyone of what race I am so I will tell you. I am a dragon, the first of my kind in the world of Marble. We are mighty and proud. We are free and fear none. Keep this in mind Miss Rabbit Mink.” I then transform into my half dragon form materializing my scales, tail, claws and wings spreading them wide. I see the utter shock and awe in her eyes, and I smile to myself showing my fangs that come with the half dragon form. I wanted to transform into my real dragon form but then I heard a knock on the door.

I quickly change back with my horns and tattoos. I smile at the mink and move to her ear as I whisper, “I am trusting you to keep this secret from everyone. I am not ready to announce that a new race has been born in Marble.” She slowly nods her head and then I open the door to see Helen with another tray of food. “Evening Helen.” I say as I take the tray. “Good evening.” She says smiling. “Are you busy downstairs?” I ask. She shakes her head and says, “No it is a slow night, and Cliff has another waitress now to help my workloads.” “Ah I wondered why there was a face I didn’t know. Then could I ask you to help her with her bath I will wait downstairs until y’all are done.” Helen looks around me to see that the mink had woken up. “Sure, Ladon.” I give her a bronze coin and say, “Here and just throw her rags out I’ll buy some clothes for her tomorrow. For tonight she can keep using my cloak.” Helen similes with a smile of a creepy old man saying “Oh really? A young man and lady in the same room with only a cloak separating her from her body.” I roll my eyes and walk past Helen. “Thank you, Helen,” as I walk away from her giggling and teasing.

I bring the tray of food with me to bar and decide to eat there and chat with Cliff. As I eat and chat with him, I feel an arm around my neck. I look at the arm and then to the face it belongs to and see a human man with scars on his cheeks. “Can I ask why you are so rudely touching me without permission?” “Ah man, don’t be like ‘at. Any friend of Noah’s is a friend of mine.” I narrow my eyes and say, “I am no friend of Noah’s or his friends.” “Sure, you are man. In fact, we want to talk to you outside about the whole misunderstanding about the dungeon.” I raise an eyebrow and start thinking what this is really about. “Are they really this stupid? I came back from that dungeon that seemed to have disappeared after they got out. Do they really think that I am still weak?” I feel insulted and underestimated. Then I think of something that makes me chuckle. I look at Cliff and say while smiling, “I’ll be back shortly. If Helen comes back before I come back tell her that I went out to chat with some fools who think that they can strong arm me.” Before either Cliff or the idiot who was duped to test me, I stand up and walk out the door.

Outside I see about five people waiting with weapons drawn. I look up and down the street and see a crowd of people watching the scene play out. I look to Sherry working her way through the crowd possibly on her way home from the guild. I yell to get her attention and wave. “Miss Sherry, good evening. I have a question if don’t mind.” She looks up and see me then at the men with weapons and she just walks right through them to me. “Ha. I knew she was strong. She doesn’t even bat an eye at these idiots.” When she reaches me, she asks in low voice, “What is going on Ladon?” I smile and say, “It seems Noah has sent these goons to ‘clear up the misunderstanding in the dungeon.’” I make quotation marks in the air to clarify that this is more of an intimidation tactic against me from speaking out. She makes a concerned face and is about to speak when I cut her off and ask, “Can I kill them in self-defense?” She balks and says, “You plan to go up against all of them at once?” I nod then point my thumb at the inn door behind me and say, “Plus one more.” As I said that the inn door burst open with the now red-faced thug from before. Sherry looks concerned then says, “If it is in self-defense plus with witnesses and especially me as a witness there will be no consequence. I have seen these ingrates before anyway. They are known to be associates of the Stray Dogs gang in the slums.” “Good and thank you for your wisdom please step back. This will help me test a few things.”

She goes back into the crowd and turns around to see the thug that dared touch me inside the inn. “You think you can just call me a fool and get away with it.” I smile and say, “I thought we were going to talk about the supposed misunderstanding concerning Noah and I.” He laughs at me and says, “Hahaha did you really expect us to talk? And you called ME the FOOL. WHAAHAHA.” I heard laughter from the ones with weapons behind me as well. “Wow they really are stupid. Not the ‘can’t size up your opponent stupid’ but the ‘don’t know sarcasm when they hear it stupid.’ Whatever I need to test my training against humans, and they make good test subjects. Though this will be the first time killing someone up close. It is a little different than firing an M4 from 150 meters at an enemy solider…Am I ready for this?... Yes, you are Ladon, there are bandit requests at the guild so it would be better to test my resolve now that I Miss Sherry in case I freeze up. They started it anyway and the world has changed. This falls under ‘do what you gotta do’. So do.”

I wait for them to make the first move so that it is truly self-defense. “If not for a discussion, then what did you call me out here for? Just to laugh at my ignorance?” He comes into my face where I can smell the bad breath of someone who does not brush their teeth. “We came out here to teach you a lesson about opening your mouth about certain subjects that are best left in the past.” He then suckers punches me in the gut which I saw coming but let happen as I bend over acting like it hurt. “Hmm…didn’t hurt at all. Must be because of my Endurance or he is just that weak.” I hear him laughing over me, “Haha, not so high and mighty now are you, Ladon.” When he finishes, I perform an uppercut but instead of my fist making contact a stone pillar shoots up with my fist’s motion and connects with his lower jaw sending broken teeth everywhere. The crowd goes silent from their murmurs and whispers. I stand up and look down at the man I just sent flying who was still alive though barely and look at Sherry and she shakes her head answering my silent question if I could kill him. “Fuck I guess I need to make sure it’s a one hit one kill for it not to come with consequences with the authority here.”

I look at the rest of the goons readying their swords, axes, and maces. “I will only say this once. You can drop your weapons now take this idiot and crawl back under whatever hole you came out from.” They looked at each other and nodded. They charged at me all at once and I just sighed, “Haa…at least you cannot say I didn’t give you a way out.” I draw my axe and with a pop my other axe from storage. I block a sword coming at my neck with my axe as I swipe at a man coming from my left. My swing was so fast that it went straight through the man’s arm cutting it off. This not only surprised me but everyone one else as well as they stared at the man’s amputated arm. He starts to scream as I recover from my surprise. The man I had blocked his sword was starting at the wounded man. Taking the chance, I used my free axe to decapitate him and moved on to the man on my right who came back to his senses. He slowly but, powerfully swings his mace at my stomach to which I jump over him doing a front flip and as I landed behind, I decapitated him as well with a cross swing with both of my axes. “Two down, one wounded. Leaves two left.”

With a burst of speed, I go after the one with axes. He seems to be smarter and faster than the others as he swipes towards my legs as the other one with a sword tries to slash at my back. I jump back to avoid the axes and pivot to dodge the sword slash. The one with the sword mutters, “What the he-“ before my axe takes off his head as I pivot. Now only the one with axes remains. He stares daggers at me as I just killed most of his friends in a blink of an eye. I smirk at him to goad him into attacking. And like the moron he is he comes at me with a series of hacks and swipes with his axes. I just leisurely parry and dodge his attacks. “Surly not all humans are like this. This…This is just boring. And I feel nothing from killing the others. Ah I’m getting bored with these assholes. Let’s end this farce.” I knock his axes away from his hands as I move to his back where I use my feet to buckle his knees. Now he is kneeling before me on two knees looking up at me with my axes crossed on top of each other against his neck. I put as much malice into my voice as I could and say, “Now let’s have a chat. I want information. Who sent you? Why did you decide to bother me? Oh, and last but not least do you want to die?” I could see the fear in his eyes as looks at my eyes. “No, no, no, I do not want to die!” He says in a panicked voice. “Then answer the first two questions imbecile.” “I can’t they’ll kill me!” I raise my eyebrow and say, “And I won’t? At least if you tell me what I want then you’ll have a chance as slim as it is to run away. Now answer me before I lose my patience.” He produces a pained expression on his face as weighs the pros and cons. “The Stary Dog boss sent us; he takes jobs from the lackeys of the lord’s son sometimes. They wanted us to ruff you up for speaking out at the inn last night. That’s all I know I swear.” I smirk at him making him whimper. I lean into ear and whisper, “You better be telling me the truth or there will no hole that you can hide in that I won’t find. Oh, and I’ll be taking payment for ruining my evening.” “What, AHHH!” He only sound out one word before I used a water spell, Water Cutter, to cut off his thumbs. “Now I could find you easily if you lied to me.” I turn around to go inside before I stopped still hearing him whimper. “You better run little rat before your superiors learns that you blabbed.”

He gets up pressing his hand to his armpits to stop the bleeding of his thumbs and runs into the darkness. I look around and go the one which I cut the arm off and see that he already bled out and was dead. I walk over to the one who was knocked out with teeth missing now. I cast the Fountain spell on his face to wake him up. “Ugh” is all the sound he could make. Then I heard soldiers coming to check on the situation. “You there!” I turn towards the soldier and wait. “What happened here?” The solider who seemed to in charge asked me as he could see my bloody axes. “These men attacked me. This one is knocked out, the other four are dead, and another one ran off.” The soldiers look at each other then back at me. Before he could say anything else to me Sherry comes up beside me and says, “What he says is true Mark. These men attacked first and Ladon acted in self-defense. Ask everyone who is still in the area if you want witnesses. Plus, these were dogs of the gang Stray Dogs.” The one who she called Mark nodded with respect towards Sherry says, “Very well Vice Guild Head. We will have someone come clean up the mess and take that one into custody.” He points at the man with missing teeth then turns to me. “We would like to get your statement in writing.” He points at a soldier behind him who steps forward. She brings out a granite stick and parchment. I nod and give her my statement then the soldiers took toothless with them and summoned body collectors to take the bodies of the dead away.

“Make sure you come by the guild soon Ladon. Some ‘C’ ranks arrived today so we can test you for promotion to ‘C’ rank…Be careful Ladon it seems Noah isn’t taking you coming back lightly.” I smile at her and say teasing, “Of course Vice Guild Head.” She shakes her head and smiles. She then leaves for her home I assumed. I walked back inside the inn and sit at the bar. “Holy shit Ladon. Where did you learn to fight like that?” Cliff asks me as I sit down. I was about to answer when Helen rushes downstairs and tackles me off the stool I was sitting on. “Whoa!” I say as hit the ground. “Ladon what the hell was that? Why did those men attack you? I saw everything from the window in your room.” I get up rubbing my back. I then place Helen on the stool next to mine and say, “First off, y’all aren’t put off that I killed those people?” They look at each other then back at and shake their heads confused. “Why would we?” Helen says. “Because I killed people.” I say matter of fact. Cliff speaks up this time and says, “They attacked you first. You defended yourself.” I nod. “Well at least they aren’t put off about me killing someone.” Then I remembered about the rabbit mink in my room. “Before I answer you. How is she? Did…Did she see that debacle?” I ask Helen.

“She did and by the look in her eyes she was in amazement. I helped her with her bath and made sure to clean her fur since it was matted and very dirty. You’ll need to by her a brush if you want her fur to be nice and silky.” She teases me but I ignored her last comment. “Did she have any fresh wounds or scars?” I ask thinking about what could be causing her illness and the first thing I could think of was infection. Helen looks at me with a sad look and says, “She has some wounds on her back that seem to be from whips. That was all I could see.” I grab the mug Cliff had set out with ale inside a little too hard and crushed it. “Whoa!” I look at it when Cliff yelped. “Ah sorry. I’ll pay for it. I have trouble controlling my emotions now adays.” Cliff chuckles nervously and says, “Ha…Ha…it’s alright.” Helen looks at me with concern and I reassure her, “I’m fine don’t worry. Just left over adrenaline from the fight.” I lie to keep my emotions in check. She nods changing the subject. “So, who were they and why did they pick a fight with you?” “From the one I let go they seemed to have been from the Stray Dogs and were hired to intimidate me to keep my mouth shut with what happened with Noah in the dungeon.” Cliff furrows his brows and says, “The pieces of trash. Ladon if you need help all you need to do is ask and I am behind you.” Helen gets up from her stool and pounds her hand to her chest. “So am I. Dwarves are sturdier than we look.” I smile at both with newfound respect. “Never in my past life had I ever have someone say that to me. Not even Cowe or Amy.” “Thank you, but I do not want to drag you two into this so I will deal with it soon. I just want to make Noah stew a little to have him start making mistakes.” They get a concerned look on their faces but nod anyway. “I am tired from all of the excitement today, so I am going to go sleep. Cliff we’ll talk about how I learned to fight another time.” He smiles and nods, “Alright Ladon. Good night, friend.” “Good night, Ladon.” Helen says and hugs me. “Good night, Cliff, sis” I smile as I hug Helen back and wave to Cliff and head upstairs.

I enter the room and see the rabbit mink sitting up in the bed with my cloak wrapped around her. I smile at her and then head into the bathroom to shower. Once I come out, I dress again and sit in the chair by the desk. “Helen told me of the wounds on your back. May I see them please?” I ask her but she hesitates. “I want to check for infection. That may be the cause for why you feel so ill.” Her eyes widen and she starts to shake and looks down. I come closer and put my hand on cheek pulling her head to meet my eyes. “I won’t do anything to you I promise. Remember what I told you about me being a dragon.” She nods. “I may be able to help you. My father taught me some spells that may help you get better quicker. I will need to buy some medicines but if it is an infection then I need to see what I need to do first. So please trust me enough to help you.” She nods her head and turns around dropping the cloak. There I see whip marks, some old leaving scars and some fresh but scabbed over. “BARBARIC!!” I almost unleash my aura but grab a hold of it before I scared her. I look closely and see that there is some infection with the new wounds. With a strained voice I ask her, “Did Francine or her employees do this to you?” She shakes her head. “How long were you at the Easy Flower? Day?” She shakes her head. “Weeks?” She shakes her head. “Days?” She finally nods. “So, under a week, seven days?” She nods her head. “Does she check her slaves first?” She shakes her head. I sigh and mutter, “Fucking businessmen.”

She looks at me confused. “It’s nothing. You do have an infection. All I can do now is ease your pain. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning I’ll get you some medicine hopefully I can find some antibiotics to fight the infection. If that still exits, I’m sure there are natural antibiotics and sense there is magic now they could be even better.” I was mostly talking to myself a habit I picked up in the dungeon. She looks at me even more confused to which I just smile. “Sorry I talk to myself sometimes. We’ll bandage you up tonight and then you should get some rest. Try not to sleep on your back though. She turns her head back around and nods timidly. With a pop I bring out some fresh clean bandages I bought the other day. I wrap the bandage around her lower back and work my up. When I got to her upper back I had her passed the bandage around her front so as not to make her uncomfortable. Finally, I was done and pulled the cloak back up to cover her. She turns back around to face me and looks at me with appreciation in her eyes. I smile and nod. “Here I’ll help you lay down on your side.” I lay her on her side facing me so that I could still talk to her. “The dwarf woman who helped you take a bath will be helping you when I am not here. She is like a sister to me and has not given me any reason to distrust her so be kind to her.” She nods and smiles a little which brightens her face. “Seems you have taken liking to her.” Her eyes shift side to side, and I chuckle. “Yeah, she grew on me pretty quickly too. She a bundle of cuteness and energy.” This makes her smile again and nods slightly. There is silence for a moment then I ask, “Did you see what happened a few hours ago?”

She makes a serious face this time and nods. I sigh and say, “I hope you won’t judge me to hard, but it had to be done. I won’t take mercy on my enemies since they won’t show any to me.” I study her face and her mine before she nods. I nod back and say, “Get some rest so you can heal faster. The body heals faster when asleep.” I grab the covers and tuck her tightly. “Good night, Miss Rabbit Mink. Sweet dreams.” I place my legs of the desk, lean back, cross my arms, and close my eyes. “I don’t know what it is about you, but hopefully we can at least come to be reliable partners.”

[Lucy’s Pov]

I lay down on the person’s bed who bought me from the slave trader’s while I watch him drift off to sleep. “Why is so nice to me? I’m cursed, does he not know that? Probably not since he is being so nice. If I get my voice back, should I tell him? If I tell him he will probably sell me, and I’ll be back to the days of misery waiting to die…But he told a secret he said that no one knew about him. He said he was dr…a…gonn. I have never heard of that before. I have read as many books as I could before I was taken as slave. Maybe it would be better to just tell him when I can instead of waiting for the inevitable. I’ll ask him to kill me or leave me for some monsters. That would be better than being abused as a slave again.” I cry silently until I drift off to sleep next the mysterious man next to me in the chair.