Adventures of the last Wild Dragon

Chapter 273: Departure and Silly Plots

The group wandered through the dark tunnels hidden deep below the Spine mountains, only the occasional cluster of glowing fungi or illuminating crystals pushed back the ever present darkness.

Yet around the group floating balls of light enabled them to walk without fear of missteps.

Time moved swiftly for the 5 people, distance being covered in steady steps. They would occasionally be attacked by wild beasts or the stray monster but this main tunnel was kept fairly clear of such threats.

As such it was only the young or desperate that would venture onto this protected ground, the older amongst the beasts knew well what awaited any that overstayed their welcome on another territory.

Eventually however their journey through the dark depths of the underground came to an end. The tunnel widened slowly and a warm yellow light illuminated the end of the tunnel, their first look at true sunlight in far too long.

Exiting the tunnel the party took a moment to bask in the welcoming warmth of the mid day sun as it shone down upon them.

Susan let out a long sigh as she stretched her arms out above her head as she enjoyed the scenery that lay before them.

A vast forest of dense trees lay before them, the sight that once scared the woman now only acting as reassurance after spending so long underground. Yet it was not the trees that captured the parties attention for very long, no it was the giant floating islands up in the sky that drew all eyes.

They hung in the air like displaced mountains, whatever unknown magic keeping them elevated clearly ancient and awe inspiring. The islands traveled in unknown patterns, as they steadily ascended high up into the sky only to gently lower themselves back down close to the tree tops.

"Welcome to the Floating Isles, the land of sovereigns." Came the voice of one of their new party members, Susan looked over at the broad back of Masin as he observed the flying mountains with caution.

"Why is it called that? The land of soverigns I mean, not the Floating Isles part I get that bit." Rhyana asked with a light chuckle.

"Well you see, nearly every single island that you see floating around out there is home to a sovereign, or in rare cases a stray Tyrant. Although the local sovereigns tend to be less than hospitable to any stray monster that they come across, so unless the tyrant is a particular horror they don’t tend to last all too long."

"Oh, that... that seems like it will be pretty dangerous here then?" Asked Susan hesitantly as she observed the floating islands with a touch more caution that before.

"Surprisingly no, well so long as you are careful anyway. You just have to ensure that you stay hidden and retract your presence when one of the island passes by overhead. The sovereigns themselves rarely actually leave their nests, instead they send out swarms of flying beasts to hunt for them when the islands swing low enough for easy access to the forest below."

As he said that he pointed towards a distant island that was doing just that, it was hovering a scant few dozen meters above the trees below, out from within the island itself dozens, then hundreds of beasts surged out of the rock and dove into the forest below in search of food.

Even from this distance the group could hear the faint echo of violence as skills and cry’s echoed out in response to the sudden assult.

The girls shuddered slightly at the sight, each of them understandably cautious about getting caught out in such a raid. Not that they didn’t think they could survive it so to speak, just that they feared if they made enough of a mess it could cause the sovereign to come looking, that was something none of them were eager to experience again so soon.

"Well we still have plenty of day light left, let’s get going and we should be able to find a good spot to set up camp. Don’t want to get caught out now do we!" Masin said with a cheer in his voice that clashed with the worried thoughts running through the girls heads.

Still they knew that they needed to go, so they took a moment to center them selves before they once more set out.

At the back of the group Olivia held a small gem in her hand an etherial arrow pointing towards the east.

**

The festivities lasted until the early hours of the next day, by that time very few people were still standing straight, or standing at all for that matter.

Violet and Luna had opted to retreat up to a room provided to them by the new owner of the inn and soon found themselves snuggled together under the blankets as the muted hubub of the party acted as a pleasant background noise to sway to two girls to sleep.

Yet their night of rest was shattered when a blade rushed down to strike the exposed neck of Violet as she lay peacefully asleep in her companions arms.

Her eyes shot open instantly, Luna too reacted a fraction of a second later, vanishing from her position in bed to be standing behind the attacker with two blade of ice already rushing towards the neck of the would be assassin.

Yet she halted her swing when she felt the amusement radiating off Violet, she paused in confusion wondering why Violet found this situation so amusing. Moving slightly to the side she looked down to see what had caused such a reaction and failed to hold back her own amusement.

The attacker, who just so happened to be the racist old man whom Violet had so thourghly humiliated the previous evening was staring in utter shock at the knife he wielded that had been halted in its path. Not by any skill or from Violet’s reactions, no, the old man had simply lacked the raw strength required to even draw blood on Violet’s enhanced body.

So the man stood their in mounting horror as he stared at the knife that’s only impact on the girl was to slightly indent her skin.

Violet, whilst finding this situation quite amusing would still not let such an action go unpunished, so with nary a flicker of will a void bolt appeared and flashed forwards, instantly piercing through the old man’s head and killing him. Before the body could even begin to slump over it was sucked into her storage ring.

Luna, who had watched that tilted her head in curiosity at her companions actions, violet seeing that explained. "I don’t want to have to explain his death, I’ll just dump the body somewhere when we leave, maybe feed it to a random beast as a snack?"

Luna chuckled at that, but then frowned and asked a question. "How did neither of us sense his presence until after he had already attacked? That is quite worrying that someone that weak managed to sneak up on us."

Yet Violet disagreed with that statement and quickly shared her own thoughts on the matter. "I think we didn’t sense him because he was no threat to either of us. I mean think about it, he had both of us completely vulnerable and stabbed me in the neck, yet he didn’t even scratch me. He had no chance of so much as harming us that we just subconsciously ignored his presence entirely."

"Still, I dont like that this managed to happen, will have to make sure that anywhere we sleep from now on is properly secured." Luna spoke more to herself than anything else, knowing that Violet would agree regardless.

After that Luna quickly summoned ice to encase both the door and the windows of the room before she jumped right back into bed and enjoyed the last few hours of night with Violet.

The morning came all too soon and both girls got themselves up and ready for the day. The ice protecting the room vanished with a slight flex of will from Luna and the two descended to the common room.

There they witnessed the utter carnage of last night. Half a dozen people lay collapsed in various states of unconscious drunken stupor, surprisingly only a couple of table and benches had been broken the night before but copious amount of booze had been spilt over the floor leaving it slightly sticky and smelling sickly sweet.

Still Yasmin was up and active and was already having breakfast being made, it did not take too long for her to come over to both girls with a warm but tired smile and present them both with full plates.

They exchanged some pleasantries before the two girls decided to head on out.

On their way out they bumped into the guard captain Patrick as he tried to enter into the establishment. "Oh good morning ladies. Are you leaving this morning?"

"Indeed we are, adventure awaits!" Replied Violet with a warm smile.

Patrick chuckled and then groaned as he clutched his head from a likely hangover. "Well I won’t hold you up. Once again thank you for your assistance and I wish the two of you safe travels!"

With that he entered into the inn. As the two girls walked away they managed to pick out the voice of Patrick ask of anyone had seen the old man after last night as apparently he had gone missing.

The two companions shared a small laugh as they left the town of Holen behind.