[Private] - Hatchlings

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    Private RP with ThotHunter420

    (I went with our characters being kind-of friends so the plot could move more easily?)


    Almandine


    ~~~~


    Al stared at the large, warm rock resting in her wagon. She knew it was a dragon's egg, and she knew finding the mother was essential, but the egg itself scared her. Pulsing gently with magic and letting off a calming heat. Al gulped slowly and gently moved the reins so her pony would move forward.


    A mile ahead, and she could ask her friend, Captain Sugar, to help find the dragon's mother. She just had to find Sugar first. She hoped beyond hope that Sugar was still in town, because Al was not prepared for the egg in the slightest. She didn't even know how it had ended up in her magic circle, she'd just been trying to bespell a mirror to make scrying easier. Nothing in her books said anything about summoning eggs, or mirrors getting shattered, and there weren't any similarities between the spell she'd been using and a teleportation spell. She'd checked. As soon as the egg appeared, she'd dug through her book frantically, trying to figure out how to send the egg back, what had gone wrong, ANYTHING.


    Her attempts to teleport the egg away hadn't worked either, the most she'd managed was burning some flowers and summoning a very confused robin that immediately hopped away and flew back to her nest two trees over.


    As Almandine crested the last hill and looked down at the town, she took a deep breath. A quest was NOT something she'd been looking forward to as a start to her journeyman career, least of all some quest with a dragon egg. And probably a very angry dragon mother.


    Please Sugar, let me find you soon.

    Captain Sugar strummed the strings of his guitar absently, staring into the dying fire in the main room of the inn he was staying at. Folks lazily sat around, quietly telling stories of their families, their recent adventures, the latest gossip floating around, and listened to him play. When he was finished, he rested his instrument against the side of his chair and pulled a blanket from another nearby chair to cover up with.


    There he sat, staring into the embers until he could no longer keep his eyes from falling shut. Cap dozed off in his chair quietly, listening to the low buzz of the few people that had decided to stay and chat after he was done playing.

    Al drove her cart into town, and after a few inquiries, discovered Sugar was still in town, staying at the Inn. Gratefully, she turned into the Inn's courtyard, hitching her horse and cart near the stables. The benefit to being a witch was that no one in town would steal from her, lest she curse them or stop healing their ailments.


    The innkeeper pointed Al towards the sleeping mound that was her friend, wrapped in a blanket next to his guitar. Casually Al strode over, taking the seat next to him before speaking to wake him.


    "I didn't expect to find you sleeping out here in the open, Cap'n. You know you can bunk with me anytime, right? In fact, I feel I might be asking you to bunk with me for a long while yet."


    She didn't expect him to take it the wrong way as other men might. Her friends all knew Al's tastes ran very, very feminine.

    Cap raised his head and opened his eyes with a soft snort and just looked at Al for a second before speaking. "You know I don't like to bother people, Al," he told her, pulling the blanket up towards his chin. He figured that she'd be busy doing her witchly things, anyway, and besides, he was mad tired after being sent on a week long mission just to kill a vampire for a barely adequate price. "What did you need?"

    Al sighed. "Know how I was practicin' spells, make both our jobs easier? Well, I...erm, accidentally summoned a dragon's egg, I think. It just sort of appeared, ya know? And yer the only person I could think of who has experience with the questing thing."


    Al gulped, she didn't want her friend to think she was taking advantage of him. "Of course, I could pay pretty well, I make a nice penny with healing people. And as long as yer not too deathly wounded, y'all won't die on my watch, or even get that sick..."

    Captain's eyes widened a bit at that. "A dragon egg?" he asked, resting his forearms on his knees, "That's...mildly terrifying." He'd been an adventurer for a considerable amount of time, but he'd never had to deal with dragons. He usually only ever dealt with vampires, trolls, and the occasional challenge of a werewolf. He thought about for a moment, then ran his hand through his thick red hair. "Al, you don't have to pay me. I'll help you out. What are friends for?" he told her. "Is it still daylight?"

    Al nodded. "For at least three hours yet, Cap'n. And at the very least yer letting me buy the food and supplies." She flicked a hand at the Innkeeper, holding up two fingers. He knew both of their preferred drinks, and he returned shortly with her watered mead (she only drank full mead when she didn't have to go anywhere) and Sugar's drink.


    "Either way, I'm not ready for this, my master didn't mention dragons much when she taught me witchcraft, except for the use of their scales in spells." Nervously, Al took a sip of her mead and looked at her friend. "I guess I royally messed up this time, eh?"

    Cap nodded. He couldn't argue with that. Literally, she was too stubborn. He sucked down at least half of his drink before he said anything else to her. "Well, I don't think it could be worse than the time I tried to fight a team of ogres alone," he reasoned. "I mean...I hope it's no worse than that. Maybe we should hit up a library and try to learn a thing or two about dragons before we leave?"

    Al grinned, finishing off her mead and dropping the money in the center of the table. "A bookstore may be better, since we might want to take the books with us?" she mused. Plus, she could pick up a few more spellbooks, try and figure out what went wrong, or try a tracking spell on the egg. "Plus, the...librarian is still mad at me." Al shifted uncomfortably. She'd borrowed and "lost" (hid in her wagon) an extremely rare spellbook several months ago, and the librarian was still upset about it, the old hag.

    Cap finished his drink and left his mug on the table, then wrapped the blanket around himself and slung his guitar over his shoulders by the strap. "You're right. Perhaps we should be hasty about it, though. Don't want it to hatch on us," he said. "We're playing with fire here. Possibly literally."

    He picked up what most of his friends liked to call his "man-purse" and hung it on the opposite shoulder of the guitar. "Are we ready?"

    Al grinned and started striding towards the door. "Well, if it does that, I suspect one of us is going to have to learn how to speak dragon real quicklike. There ain't any joy in angry mothers, of any sort."


    Al's pony whickered at the sight of Captain Sugar. The silly creature was familiar with her friend, and he pulled his head forward to nuzzle Sugar in the chest.

    Cap smiled and gave Al's pony a few good pets on the head before climbing into the back of her cart, careful not to knock his guitar around. He looked at the dragon egg sitting in the cart and held his hand above the glowing shell. The heat of the egg warmed his cold hands, and honestly, it was kind of comforting. "What were you trying to even do when you...summoned this?" he asked.

    Al unhitched her pony and climbed into the driver's seat, twitching the reins to steer the pony towards the road and bookstore.


    "I was tryin' to make a scrying mirror, since it would be easier than waitin' all day for a few vague answers from a puddle. And my spell was correct accordin' to the book, but instead of bespellin' a mirror, this egg appeared. You can glance at the book if ya like, Cap'n, I marked the page." Al waved a hand vaguely at the book next to Sugar, the page for making scrying mirrors marked with a red ribbon.


    "I thought a mirror would be a boon to both of us, bein' able to tell when raiders were comin' or babies about to be born. Ev'n give you a warnin' when new customers are lookin' for you. Give me a way to practice my scryin' so I can get my mastery from the guild."

    Cap took a look at the book. Being a bard, he knew a bit about spellcasting, so he could understand quite a bit of it, but the conjuration part of it had him thrown. "I don't understand how this could've happened, honestly," he told her. "Maybe it's just fate."

    He curled up in the corner of the wagon with his blanket opposite the egg and tried to ignore the bumps in the road. It was cold, and the blanket wasn't doing him much good. He sighed and shivered, settling in for the short ride.

    After a few minutes, Al pulled to a stop in front of the bookstore, loosely hitching her pony to a post. She wandered in, letting Cap decide to come in on his own time.


    A quick query to the shop owner, and he had pulled several reference books on dragons down from various shelves. Casually, Al started to flip through the pages, deciding which books she'd like to purchase.

    Cap sighed and climbed out of the wagon. He covered his guitar and bag with the blanket so that they wouldn't get stolen and entered the bookstore. He wandered around, since it seemed like Al was taking care of the books they needed. He pulled a few books about various things; story books, medical books, books about how to discipline your children. Just some stuff to keep him occupied.

    After selecting the dragon books she wanted, Al paused and glanced around the shop. Dust motes danced in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Outside, the muffled bustling of the town murmured.


    Al grinned and made her purchases, four reference books on dragons, a book of medical potions, and a loose book of Dragon songs and legends that the bookkeeper had tossed in when Cap had entered the store. Perfect.


    Al tapped her friend on the shoulder as she went outside, sliding the books into place behind her seat before unhitching the pony and waiting for her friend.

    Cap followed Al outside, the cold air stinging his nose as stepped out. He shivered a bit and crawled into the wagon, pulling one of the four books on dragons out when he got in. A book on types of dragons and where they can be found.

    He flipped through the pages, looking for a picture of an egg similar to the one they had. "I'm trying to figure out what kind of dragon this is so we can figure out where to go," he told her. "Any guesses?"

    Al moved the reins slightly, urging her pony into a walk before speaking. She could read when they'd made camp for the night, after all.


    "From the egg's texture, maybe a mountain or dessert breed of some sort? Since it looks kind of like a rock? And maybe a bigger fire dragon, 'cuz the egg is so large and warm? I dunno really, that's probably a lot of dragons to go through.


    "When we stop for the night, I'm comparing the spell I used to some of my other spellbooks, see what went wrong. At best, it was a bad translation, at worst....I might be cursed now?" Al shuddered at the thought, keeping her eyes firmly on the road.

    "Well...I hope to the gods above that it's not an evil breed," Cap said, glancing back and forth between the egg and the pictures in his book. "Hm. Red, black, and green shades of chromatic dragons tend to be bad news."

    He looked up at the sky, noting the sun beginning to slowly set behind a distant mountain in front of them. It wasn't evening yet, but it was imminent. He soon got a bit annoyed with the cryptic language used in the book he was reading, and pulled out the book of dragon songs and legends. He figured he could actually learn something from this one. "I'll play you a song later, alright?"