The Adventures of Rose Hood

Chapter 10: The Fire Dragon

There, in the last room, was a dragon. It was my older sister, the fire dragon. I saw 10 skeletons distributed around the room.

She noticed me.

"Sister?"

"Hello."

"What are you doing here?"

"I became an adventurer; I was here to clear the dungeon. I wasn't expecting you to be here."

"Ah, well I suppose I could pretend to be dead and then kill whatever comes in to replace me. Here, shift to your humanoid form, I'll make tea."

She turned into a beautiful elven woman, and I turned into the short catkin.

"I'm guessing the guild doesn't know your nature?"

"Only a few members of the Kingsguard, and two people I respect know."

"Kingsguard? That's a gamble."

"Royce said he'd hide it and take responsibility if I caused trouble."

"Ah, so Sir Royce is a friend of yours."

"Yes, and sister?"

"Oh, please call me Thalia, that is my new name."

"Ah, mine is Rose."

"Wonderful, well, what do you want to tell me?"

I looked down, and Thalia could tell something happened.

"Rose, what happened?"

"Ravi is dead."

She dropped her teacup, and I caught it.

"Who killed him?"

Her voice was furious.

"The same elf that killed our parents."

"I swear I'll ki-"

"I'm sorry to say that I beat you to the punch."

She contemplated what I said for a second, before retrieving her teacup.

"Thank you."

"He was a hard fight."

"I'd imagine, please tell me you ate him afterwards."

"Since it was in a tournament, I decided that wouldn't be very intelligent."

"Heh, well at least it was in a public place. What festival did the tournament involve itself in?"

"The New Kings Festival."

She spit out her tea and bellowed out laughing.

"You killed the elf in front of the entire kingdom? That's incredible. I wish I could've seen it."

"It was a fun fight. I respected him."

"Then he was a strong fighter indeed. Even Ravi never gained your respect as a fighter. Of course, you were the strongest sibling."

"No, I wasn't. I never bested Ravi or Father."

"Only because you had no will to kill. Think of it, whenever Ravi fought, Father or Mother would have to pull him off of whichever of us he defeated, but with you, you helped us up."

"I guess."

"Besides, we are flame, water, light, etc. You are arcane. Did it never occur to you that you were stronger?"

"Only after I won against Saliad."

"So, that was his name?"

"Yes."

"Saliad, I'll remember that name. Someone that strong deserves remembrance."

"Agreed."

"Well, there is some gold here that you can have, I have no particular use for it."

"Thanks, and would I be able to potentially get a scale or a shed claw?"

"Ah, for proof of the kill."

"Yep."

"Sure, I'll do you one better, a fang fell out during my last fight. I preserved it, intending to craft a dagger. You can have it if you let me inspect and upgrade your gear."

"Sure, I know how talented you are."

Thalia's smithing skill was on par with people who'd trained for 1000s of years. Her affinity for smithing came from her being a fire dragon.

I made more tea while she worked on my armor. When she took a tea break, she had a question,

"Why do you look so childlike?"

"Beastkin look young in adolescence, so I decided to make myself look young, and since I wanted to appear weaker, I made myself small in stature, so I looked even younger. Everyone thinks I'm 19 but I could still easily pass for a 10-year-old."

"Smart. Then only those strong enough to notice your aura would realize you are not all you seem."

"Yes, while you, on the other hand, make it no mystery that you are a dragon."

"Of course, I am a dungeon boss after all. May as well look the part."

"What are you doing here, though?"

"I thought this would be a good place to build a nest."

"Without a mate?"

"Oh, I developed the lay skill. That allows me to reproduce without a mate, even in adolescence. Of course, they'll be female fire dragons, but hey, at least the species will begin growing again."

"Maybe I should get that skill."

"Please, you're almost the youngest, I'm over 700 remember, you shouldn't worry about reproducing yet."

"Still would be a good skill to develop before nesting."

"I guess, well it's easy, just hunt and eat spiders for a while."

"Would you mind if I developed it here?"

"Not at all. It'll take a day to enhance this. May as well train while I work on it."

"Thank you."

"No problem."