Draconic Sphere Ω

Chapter 36: Her Outrageous Bad-Boy Aura

Wintergreen and Ezra, it seemed, were still in jail the next morning.

Breakfast without Wintergreen just wasn't the same. A guild member by the name of Francois volunteered to make scrambled eggs. Through some questionable miracle, the eggs came out both burnt and runny.

"Are these, like, dragon eggs?" asked Dandelion as she took her portion from the pot.

"No," said Francois, a corpulent fellow overshadowed by a very large, wide-brimmed hat. "They're chicken eggs."

Dandelion looked disappointed. "Chicken eggs," she said.

"Yes," said Francois in a level voice.

"Not magic chicken eggs, by any chance?" asked Dandelion.

"No," said Francois.

"Not, like, incubated by a snake, leading them to potentially hatch into a monstrous half-chicken-half-snake-all-badass monster thingy?"

"You mean a cockatrice? No."

"How does that even work? The snake would just eat the eggs. And you need a warm blooded creature to incubate a chicken egg, surely."

"I don't know," said Francois. "Could you move along so that other people can serve themselves?"

"I'm small," said Dandelion. "They can reach over me. See?" Dandelion attempted to tickle the armpit of the guy reaching over her (a man called Jagger whose skin was studded by many metal rivets). Jagger shot Dandelion a glare before taking his eggs elsewhere.

"Wintergreen!" Dandelion heard Verano exclaim. She looked around.

Wintergreen had arrived. She had a grim look on her face, and was approaching Dandelion. "Can we talk, Dandelion, Lacrie, Brunhild, Kaergat?"

*

Wintergreen came up to the party's room for the sake of privacy. Kaergat offered her a seat. Dandelion sat on her own bed, while the others made a little semicircle of chairs.

"How is Ezra?" asked Lacrie. "Is she still in jail?"

"Yes," said Wintergreen. "She is the highest ranking member of Feenschwanz now, and they're hoping they can still squeeze the location of the Draconic Sphere out of her somehow."

"Why don't you tell them the truth?" asked Lacrie.

"That an Unsleeping took the Sphere before the dragon arrived? Well... Ezra thought that'd sound about as believable, or... well, as much like a lie, as what we told them. That we couldn't find the Sphere on his corpse, and that it's probably in a pocket dimension that only he knew how to access. Either way," Wintergreen sighed, "they're going to try and search us."

"We can not allow the government to have the Draconic Sphere," said Kaergat.

Wintergreen nodded slowly. "Ezra and I agree. Ezra wants us to raid the Unsleeping and capture the Sphere before the government works it out."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" said Lacrie, with feeling.

Wintergreen looked very, tired.

Dandelion was sad to see Wintergreen this way. She liked the happy, friendly version of Wintergreen. "What's up, Winter?" she asked.

"There's... one more thing."

"What?" asked Lacrie.

"Andromalius will be free of his contract in two days if we do nothing to stop it, and... he is a being of vast, otherworldly power. We need to take his threats seriously."