The Dragon Queen of Thelvadore

Over her years of adventuring, Cecily van Laarstin had certainly experienced quite a few things. And even before she had begun her adventuring career, she had been schooled quite thoroughly in her family’s estate. Due to the inherent dangers of Void magic, her family took their responsibilities seriously, both in schooling and training, and in proper application. No van Laarstin, no matter how gifted, would be taught even the basics before they showed that they had the necessary moral understanding to apply it properly.

And even if one displayed the proper characteristics, training was done with the utmost caution, lest anyone caused more harm than good with their gifts. Cecily had been no different.

It had taken her quite some time to properly understand and internalise this new application of Void magic, so she was only starting to appreciate the possibilities this opened now. Originally she had worked under the assumption that she had never seen this sort of thing before, this taint, yet after she started understanding what it was and how it worked, she realised that this assumption may not be entirely correct.

Of course, she couldn’t be certain about her theory, especially given that she was working with half-remembered facts about something she hadn’t remotely understood at the time, nor knew what to look for, but after careful consideration she realised that she might have already seen this taint prior to today. She just didn’t know it at the time.

Not that this revelation was of any help to her at that moment. She wasn’t that naive and weak minded to worry about how things would have changed if she had known at the time. How many people she could have saved, or how she would have acted differently. Such what-if scenarios certainly had their place during analysis and improvement, but they were not worth getting lost in. The past was the past, and as far as she knew, even magic couldn’t change that.

Perhaps magick could, but that was a topic for another day. She still wasn’t quite certain she understood the difference between the two terms properly, even after everything Vuthe had explained.

She sighed inwardly, as she moved on to the next patient. By now most of the major wounds had been healed, so all she had to do now was remove the minor taint left over. This one she could do alone, so she and Nyx had split up to work more efficiently.

The stray thought regarding the terminology of magic brought forth another item on her mind. And that was the woman in question, Vuthe.

Many mysteries surrounded the dragoness, most of them far too much for Cecily to decipher. She did feel slightly irked that the one who had showed her how to identify and remove the taint was someone who wasn’t even capable of using Void magic, but Cecily was self-aware enough to realise that that was a highly childish notion born from the implication that Vuthe had learned from the Great Lady herself.

Cecily van Laarstin was by no means a religious zealot. But even she couldn’t deny the feeling of excitement at the idea of learning under the Lady of Secrets personally.

Well… It’s only natural that two Goddesses work together, no? Who else can teach someone that wise and powerful than another deity of higher ranking?

She frowned. The reminder brought into focus probably the biggest… Well, the word issue was not quite fitting, although she lacked the proper vernacular to put it into different words–the biggest issue that she had with the being known as Vuthe de Thal.

And that was the claim of divinity.

Cecily trusted Lucy, truly. She had travelled with the other woman for long enough to be convinced that the strange magics that the Catkin used to interrogate the world was truthful and trustworthy. Of course, there were minor discrepancies, but not once had it been so wrong that she could not at least infer the truth from the information she received.

Yet, despite this, and despite the time that Lucy and Cecily had spent going over the profile of Vuthe, she still had trouble fundamentally accepting the fact that the woman she had been travelling with was a being of such outstanding power and influence that not even the world dared to demand she obeyed the rules of magic.

Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that, so far, Vuthe hadn’t done anything that could doubtlessly be called a divine miracle. Yes, her draconic form and the power she felt radiation from her then was quite awe-inspiring, and Cecily wasn’t blind enough not to feel that strange radiance that lingered deep within the dragoness’ presence. But it was still in line with what she would expect an ancient dragon to be capable of. No divinity needed.

Or perhaps it was simply the result of Cecily not having actually felt the presence of a god personally before. Not that that was in any way surprising. Even the more active deities only rarely appeared publicly, much less performed large scale miracles.

At the same time, however, as a follower of the Lady of Secrets, she had visited the shrines and libraries in her Lady’s name before, and she hadn’t ever felt some kind of immense presence like the one so often told about by the clergy of other churches. Of course, the Great Lady was, even if she were to be an actual Goddess–which in and of itself was a hotly debated topic even amongst the most fervent worshippers–quite eccentric, so comparing her to the mundane wasn’t going to get you far either way.

With a faint grimace she felt her thoughts begin to spiral again, as always when she arrived at this particular topic. In her mind that meant that she had gotten distracted long enough and it was time to clear her head a bit.

Thankfully, she was just about done with the remnants of the taint afflicting the mercenary currently in front of her. With a small nod to herself and a soft sigh, she removed the last traces of the Void, before standing up and stretching. Nyx Viridari was currently occupied healing a particularly nasty wound on the arm of a man further away. The wound itself wasn’t dangerous, but if it wasn’t treated properly, it might affect his ability to move his arm properly in the future. For that reason Nyx had to put the man to sleep with magic, since she had to re-open and re-fracture a few of the bone fragments to prevent it from healing the wrong way.

Such treatments were never pleasant no matter the circumstances, and Cecily truly pitied the man for having to endure it, even with the magical sleep he was in. Having experienced the same before herself, she knew how agonising it could be, especially if done wrong. Thankfully, Nyx seemed capable enough to know what she was doing.

Leaving the woman to her work, Cecily decided to take a small break. Looking around she saw that the medical supplies and bandages were running low anyway, so she might as well make herself useful and procure some more, lest they ran out in the middle of something.

The storage of fresh supplies wasn’t that far, just enough to stretch her legs a bit and get some fresh air. A very welcome change of pace after being holed up in the Inn for the past… she honestly couldn’t even guess how long it had been, treating the wounded.

Waving to one of the people helping out, she left the room and made her way outside, her thoughts straying once more to the newly found knowledge and the possible applications.

The Void was, fundamentally, a destructive force, and would always be such. That was the first rule any aspiring Void magician learned, and her family had made sure to hammer that fact into her head early on. Even then, however, this new application made Cecily feel that she was now able to do more than just destroy. She could also heal those affected by the void, in some abstract way.

It felt good to think about that, and she vowed to help instruct her family in this use the next time she visited home. Whenever that would be.

Of course, even with that new usage, and the feeling of giddy excitement she got from being able to apply the Void in this new way, it wasn’t healing in the same way other magics were capable of. For that one still needed a proper healer. In this case, Nyx Viridari.

The mental mention of the mage drew Cecily’s attention to the woman, and she once again wondered just who that woman was. Ever since the two had met, Nyx had been quite the enigma to the spellsword, for various reasons.

The woman was no doubt capable, in some aspects even more so than other adventurers Cecily had met over the years, despite her relatively low apparent rank. Yet for all that Nyx did to heal the wounded and ease their pain, she had almost exclusively received cautious and skeptical reception by almost anyone Cecily had observed meeting the woman. It made her wonder just what it was that she didn’t yet know about Nyx, given how much effort the… elf? Put into helping everyone.

Truth be told, it left a sour taste in the young noble’s mouth.

Of course, animosity amongst adventurers wasn’t anything new to her. A certain level of skepsis was good to have in a line of work that often involved entrusting your life to others with very little in terms of rules and regulations overseeing them. Adventurers were quite unlike most other people. And for all the good they did, one shouldn’t forget that betrayals were far more common among them than almost anywhere else.

And that was just amongst adventurers. Adding guards or mercenaries to the mix just amplified that anxiety and skepsis tenfold.

Cecily had never gone around asking, but she was pretty certain that had to do with the fact that, prior to the guild becoming established, a lot of the work that adventurers did these days had been the responsibility of mercenary groups. Many of them hadn’t taken kindly to the fact that a lot of their previous work and income had suddenly vanished, more or less overnight.

Even with six centuries between the establishment of the guild and today, old grudges died hard. Especially given how many of the mercenary guilds employed members of longer lived races, at least in the upper echelons.

Such a state of affairs would no doubt lead to those grudges being passed down to younger, more impressionable members. It wasn’t like such things were exclusive to the nobles or guild feuds, after all.

All of that made Cecily quite weary about the interactions between Nyx and the patients.

In the end, it was only that skepsis that allowed her even an opportunity to act, when the pot finally boiled over.

She had just gotten back from her resupply run, the box in her hands not yet fully placed onto the table near the entrance to the room, when something nagged at the back of her mind. Despite her relatively young age amongst her people, she had trained for most of her life, and had been an adventurer for almost as long. Her instincts were sharp, especially when it came to sudden and unexpected dangers, and even more so when that danger came from the activation and chanting of various magickal phenomena.

So when she felt someone reinforce themselves with magic behind her, she immediately knew that something was up. Alarm bells began ranging in her head, and her body immediately went into emergency mode.

Adrenaline spiked, her heart rate accelerated, the world seemed to slow down, all her senses focused on the potential danger she sensed behind her. She turned, one hand already going for the rapier at her side, trained motions coming to her on their own. A raised voice was audible now, accusation dripping from the spoken words, mixed with anger and something she wasn’t immediately able to identify.

Her eyes landed on the source of the magic, one of the wounded, standing with his chest still bare, likely just having been healed, and towering over the smaller Nyx Viridari, his expression clearly hostile. He had one hand on his weapon, the blade halfway drawn, his face twisted in a mix of anger and rage, an emotional turmoil that threatened to overwhelm him.

Cecily noted idly that despite the emotions flooding through the man, he was clearly trained enough to keep his magic from going haywire. A good indicator of skill, and welcome in nearly any scenario, although right now it also meant that she would have to be careful with how to deal with him.

Instinctively Cecily began to weave her Spell Erosure, just in case.

She wasn’t even halfway done with her preparations, quick as they may have been, when the man roared, drew his sword, and charged at Nyx with an overhead slash.

The attack was simple, a refined motion, trained over years of use, sloppy compared to his best, perhaps, but far from useless. Worst of all, it was an attack guided entirely by powerful emotion, and Cecily knew from experience that such moments were always the most dangerous, people who were that enraged rarely had it in them to prevent collateral damage.

Worst of all, at this distance, there was no way the man would miss his target, not without some form of miracle.

The moment he began to move, so did Cecily, instinctively drawing upon the domain of Motion, reinforcing her legs far beyond the advisable limits, ignoring the pain as her muscles strained to keep up with her now enhanced speed. The magic took hold in a fraction of a second, but even with this, she knew immediately that she wasn’t going to make it in time.

Nor was Nyx going to be able to finish the spell she had begun weaving the moment the man had started his charge.

Her mind lit up in a desperate search for any potential tactic that could prevent the worst, thoughts passing by her at lightspeed. From all that Cecily could tell about Nyx, she was a pure mage. That told her that it was at least likely that she had some form of defensive magics that might help her survive. Of course, it was unclear if they were active right then and there, most of the passive magics were almost impossible to notice while they were dormant.

That said, even if she had such a spell active, Nyx had cast quite a bit of magic already, to help heal the wounded. Even as a pure mage, and a likely well trained one at that, Cecily wasn’t sure just how much more the woman could handle.

Her foot hit the ground for the second time, the spell in her hand was about ready to be cast, the telltale flicker of Void tracing the tip of her blade as she moved. It was the only shot she had at trying to stop the man, but she was reluctant to go through with it. The void didn’t do immobilisation. It only dealt in destruction. If she decided to go through with it, there was no outcome that didn’t involve a body on the floor. The only question then was who that body belonged to.

Just as she was about to throw all her caution to the wind and complete the chant, the world stopped.

A presence appeared, one that was far beyond the realm of mere mortals, crushing down on everyone present like the hammer on an anvil. Immediately, all alarm bells went off in Cecily’s mind, her sharpened senses overwhelmed by the sheer weight behind it.

Her magic faltered, the spell in her hand fizzling out into nothing, as even the Void retreated from the power that suddenly infused the room. Cecily gawked at that, never having seen something disrupt a Void spell before. It was such a fundamentally weird experience that it rattled her brain for a moment.

Panic rose inside her for a moment when she realised she couldn’t even breathe, although the moment that realisation hit her, the presence subsided ever so slightly, allowing her to take a deep breath to steady herself.

Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one suddenly trapped in place, her own body no longer obeying her wishes. Both Nyx and her attacker were equally frozen, as was everyone else. From her position, Cecily couldn’t see the face of the mage, but her attacker definitely looked completely puzzled.

A long moment of silence followed, one in which it felt like the world itself was trying to come to terms with what the hell had just happened. It was interrupted by a voice, one that was quite familiar to Cecily’s ears, yet also strangely different. It held an authority and weight that bordered on mind numbing to experience.

“What in the Abyss is going on?”

Despite the situation, a bit of relief washed over her when she realised who it was, her mind finally catching up with the fact that Vuthe had somehow made it here just in time to prevent the worst.

The relief was subdued, however, quickly pushed to the wayside when she finally had the time to properly intuit what exactly was going on. Vuthe’s presence was immense, far more powerful than the time she had taken her dragon form. It held authority, ancient wisdom, the promise of a fate worse than death for those who dared to go against her, yet also a feeling of safety for those under Vuthe’s protection.

But there was also more to it. The faint trace of radiance that Cecily had felt previously seemed to be amplified tenfold now, speaking of power so far beyond mortal understanding as to be incomprehensible.

For the first time Cecily truly believed the dragoness’ claims of divinity. And that realisation was equal parts awe-inspiring, and terrifying to witness.

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