The Dragon Queen of Thelvadore

Leaving the common room turned makeshift hospital, I found myself in the entrance hall of the Inn. It, too, served as somewhat of a common room, although it also held the check-in counter and a small bar on the other end. A place for patrons to sit and drink before they return to their rooms.

The place felt deserted, even if it wasn’t. It wasn’t the absence of people, more so the contrast of activity in another part of the building that gave the feeling. The Inn’s owner, Margret if I had to guess, was standing at the check-in counter, gaze locked onto some sort of ledger, carefully comparing entries with the contents of another book. I let her be, and simply crossed the room.

Outside, I paused, taking a small breath. I had absolutely no idea where the merchant, this Mister Shaltein, could be at the moment, although I could hazard a guess or two. That said, I didn’t need to set out on a blind search.

Ever since my conversation with Lucy and Cecily on the first night of our journey, I had tried my best to get some more control over my presence and aura. That was, in part, why I had offered them aura control training to begin with. It was a rather important facet of magic to learn about, especially for me.

The last thing I needed was to waltz up to a small town, just to terrify everyone shitless. Something that could happen rather easily, given Vuthe’s nature as a trueblooded Shadow Dragon. It wasn’t even necessarily that I was trying to keep a low profile–if anything, despite Vuthe’s expertise in Shadow magic and divine domain I was certainly not cut out for stealth as things stood–but it was just good manners to not run around with the magical equivalent of having a massive soundbox on my shoulders blasting badly performed death metal at debilitating volumes for everyone in the whole countryside to hear.

Everyone had an aura, as it was what protected the body from organic magic. And while most probably wouldn’t ever learn how to properly sense things with it, if you brought enough power to bear, then you stood out like a beacon. You needn’t know a language to know if someone speaking it is frustrated or bursting from happiness. The tone of voice is enough for you to make that out most of the time.

Long story short, I had taken the time of our journey to try and perfect my control over my own. And now it was time for me to put my progress to the test. The plan was simple: Use my own aura to search for this Mister Shaltein, without smothering the place in my presence.

The results were not entirely what I had expected.

That wasn’t exactly news. Ever since Cecily had pointed out my shortcomings, it had been suspiciously easy to adjust as needed. To the point I wasn’t sure if I was doing horribly, doing it horribly wrong, or simply thought myself to do it right. Of course, I could leech off of Vuthe’s knowledge, but the closer I got to her level of skill, the harder it was to just simply copy. At the same time, I sadly didn’t have anyone nearby sufficiently skilled in aura control to help me figure out potential bad habits.

So I had to make due.

I did make some progress once I had started teaching my travelling companions, as it inevitably forced me to confront the basics once more. While most of my troubles came from the more advanced applications of aura control, overviewing the basics did help in refining at least some of my issues through the lens of a new perspective.

My little tangent aside, once I pushed out my senses, I found the Merchant relatively quickly. I had suspected three likely locations for him to be–actually, four, if I considered for a moment: the mayor’s office, the village’s prominent general store, the guild branch, and his caravan.

I found him in the guild’s branch office.

Nodding to myself, I turned and began to make my way over. I did have the foresight earlier, when Lucy dropped off the first part of the delivery, to put down one of my shadow anchors in the building the guild branch was occupying, but I wasn’t in a rush, and I didn’t want to start a general panic.

And really. It was only a couple of minutes walk. I wasn’t the same shut-in NEET anymore. I had a body capable of marching for literal months on end.

I frowned at the thought, once again feeling vague, half-baked memories fluttering through the back of my mind. But this time it wasn’t just memories of my old life on earth–if you could even call those fragmented images memories–there were also some memories from Vuthe’s past, these ones strangely more vivid and clear.

Okay, I say more vivid and clear, but that was purely in comparison to the memories of my previous life. It was still hard to make out any concrete details. Really, the main difference was that Vuthe’s memories seemed to have more emotional impact attached to them.

I had noticed that before already, but it still left me confused every time. One of the many questions that I no doubt would have to wait years for answers for, if I ever got any in the first place. The only person I could think of who was capable of telling me what happened, was unlikely to ever bother to do so, unless, of course, she could get something out of it.

And even then… Abyss and Ciencia might have a bit of a rivalry going on, what with both of them being dedicated to knowledge and secrets, but despite this, Abyss wasn’t any different from her Celestial counterpart when it came to the question of spreading secrets. In some ways, she was even more stuck up in her olden ways.

For all that Ciencia was, on paper, the very personification of the concept of knowledge and secrets, she was the least powerful out of the ten Celestials precisely because of Abyss’ existence. I did plan to maybe seek out a temple in her name to at least attempt to ask, but chances were that if Abyss wanted something secret, not even Ciencia and her clergy could go against it. Or even if they could, they were unlikely to be willing to do so.

A sigh escaped my lips, and I shook my head, trying to brush all of it off. The more I thought about it, the more questions flitted into my mind, and the more frustrated I grew. All of that would have to wait until we arrived at Vastell. Hopefully there I could get at least some answers.

The thought of the city once again brought forth memories from Vuthe’s past.

Vastell was one of those cities that were relatively new to the canon of this world from my perspective as the author, but in the lore it had been around for quite some time. And from what I could recall from Vuthe’s memories, she had been there before, albeit quite some time ago.

From the vague images and feelings I got, it had been nothing more than a simple small village back then. Strangely enough, it didn’t seem connected to some sort of war effort, on the contrary. It felt almost peaceful. Which… I wasn’t quite sure how that would work out?

I had some revisions where Vuthe had lived in a smaller village by the ocean after the war had ended, but given that in this version of events–the one I was currently living in–the war had ended in Vuthe’s death and the loss of Thelvadore from all I could tell, that didn’t quite fit together.

That meant that whatever mechanism had put this world together had probably mixed up a few things. I already knew that my knowledge of this world wasn’t a certainty, but this made me question just what exactly Vuthe’s past looked like in its entirety.

My thoughts were interrupted when I finally arrived in front of the guild’s branch office. The building looked modern chic, but with more subdued design choices and colours to better fit into the aesthetic of the rest of the village. It made me wonder what the branches in the bigger cities might look like.

Dismissing the idle thought, I pushed the door opened and entered. The guild branch itself wasn’t technically open yet. Most of the services weren’t available–from what I had overheard from Lucy’s conversation earlier–but there was still a receptionist standing behind a rather lavishly decorated counter, complete with a barricade blocking her off from any would-be trouble makers.

I guess that made sense. From everything I knew of the guild’s iteration in this world, it very much catered to the idea of your stereotypical adventurers from most fiction. It was, after all, designed that way specifically by Tizanta.

The receptionist in question was watching me with a smile, the moment the door opened. Unlike so many depictions in anime, manga, or whatever other form of media, this wasn’t some teenage girl with a body so unrealistic it would require actual bodily harm to obtain. Instead, she was more the motherly middle aged type, one who was eating quite well it appeared.

The dichotomy of it all made me chuckle inwardly. Seeing an actual human woman standing in the middle of what was, ostensibly, the most widespread fantasy trope somehow clashed so hard in my mind. It made me very conscious of how I, myself, had often unwittingly oversexualised many of the characters I had described in my stories over the years.

Everyone’s a hypocrite, I supposed.

Crossing the room, I approached the older woman with a smile of my own.

“Nice to see you again so soon. Miss de Thal, was it?” The woman asked, tone professional but with a genuine hint of friendliness underneath.

“Yes, thank you. I’m looking for Mister Shiltain. Gentleman, probably around your age, well dressed, merchant by profession? You wouldn’t, perchance, know where he is?” Of course, I knew exactly where he was, but it would be rude to just brush past the woman and into the corridors that were very clearly not meant to be simply entered without invitation.

“I believe so, Miss de Thal,” the receptionist replied with a smile. “May I ask what business you have with him? I’m afraid he is currently in talks with our branch director. Perhaps I can inform him of your presence?”

I nodded at that. “Of course. I’m simply here to inform him that Lady Nyx, Lady Cecily, and I might have found a way to help the wounded of his caravan. Well, they more than me, for all my attempts to assist it isn’t exactly within my area of expertise. It will take a couple of days to actually help everyone, which is why I thought it prudent to inform him so that he can take the expected delay into account with his future plans.”

I had already noticed before that it felt far easier to slip into the more formal and friendly persona I had always imagined for Vuthe, but every time I did it still amazed me anew. And with each time it also became more and more second nature.

“I see. I heard about the wounded and the difficulties that they encountered. It is good to hear that they can receive the help they require. Very well, I’ll go check with him. Please wait here for a moment.”

She gave me a small nod of the head, then turned and left through the door at the other end of the small little cabin she occupied. I remained where I was, waiting for her to return, idly inspecting the interior of the place yet again.

It really was very much in the style I’d expect from a branch of the adventurers guild. The only thing missing was the hustle and bustle of dozens of people mingling, looking for teams, preparing for quests, the whole kit and kaboodle. The infrastructure for it all was there, a small bar to the side where you could have a pint and a bite, some tables to sit and discuss, the large empty quest board taking up the majority of the wall to the left from the receptionist counter.

It only took a couple of minutes before the door on the right hand side of the reception opened, and the same woman who I had spoken earlier stepped out, waving me over.

“Mister Shiltain would like to invite you into the meeting, since you mentioned potential delays.”

“Of course. Please, lead the way.”

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