B2 – Chapter 12: A meeting with a headsman

Tristan was woken up by a soft hand touching his face. Blinking his eyes open, he saw Felicity staring at him. “Hi,” she softly said.

Tristan smiled, “You’re alive. You risked your life for me.”

“Pff,” she replied as she shook her head. “Please. As if. I just got hit by something unlucky was all. No clue what it was though.”

“The spiked ball,” Tristan said. “When he pulled it back, it clipped you.”

She inhaled through her teeth with a slight hiss, “Ouch. That explains it. How’d I survive? Not that I’m complaining!”

“Obadai can use rejuvenation. Did you push the contents of the storage dimension thing you have out of there before you went unconscious?”

“Yup!” she said as she sat up all the way and shifted into her fairy dragon form. Curling up on the pillow, she peered at him from a single eye with a sideways glance. “You fed me a lot of elixirs?”

“All of the healing ones, and I drank the essence ones. We’re tapped out on those two types until I make more.”

She shook her head, “Shame, that.”

“But!” Tristan said as he smiled, propping his head up on his hand and elbow, “We have a meeting with the headsman of the town I saved. I’m sure we can get some supplies for potions as a reward for our works. You should have seen it! A bunch of townsfolk – hundreds – tracked us down and offered…all types of stuff.”

Felicity frowned, “And you didn’t take the stuff?”

“I don’t need all those supplies,” Tristan replied as he shook his head ever-so-slightly. “Those people have greater need than I.”

Felicity sighed and flicked her tail back and forth, “You’re a strange one. You’re greedy over your Realm’s essence, yet you don’t give in to that greed for material goods.” She reached a paw-claw out and poked his chest, “Your mother raised you really well. No fairy dragon would be that…what’s the word? Starts with the letter ‘a’?”

“Altruistic?”

“That.”

Tristan shrugged and sat up all the way, glancing down at the discoloration on his chest. “I guess Cure Wound spells don’t fix all signs of injury.”

Felicity sat up and her eyes went wide, “Your whole torso was crushed! No wonder you couldn’t talk when I first got to you.”

“Is this…normal? Having my skin like this even after essence-weaving based healing?”

Felicity shrugged, “No clue. More importantly, how do I look?” She shifted to her elfanoid form and got out of bed.

Tristan shook his head, “You look fine. No injuries I can see. Maybe because you are a magical species? I know you regrew a wing when I cut it off on our first trip here.”

Felicity nodded, “Fairy dragons always heal quickly. I think your bruising will go away with a higher Order rejuvenation spell, or time.” She frowned, “If it doesn’t, then you won’t have nearly as nice of a chest.”

Tristan blushed as he stood up, “Well…thank you for the compliment.” He walked over to his clothes that had been swapped out for freshly laundered ones at some point while he slept. Getting dressed, he picked up his armor and weapon to head outside, but Felicity walked up and hugged him from behind. He felt her petite form pressing against him.

“Thank you, Tristan, for saving me.”

“Of course,” Tristan whispered softly.

She let go and fell in step behind him as he headed out to the forge to fix his dented and damaged armor. “What was the fight like? I only saw you fighting the big thing.”

Tristan worked on repairing his armor by hammering out the dents as he spoke about the conflict, replaying it not just verbally but mentally once more. He pointed out the various flaws to his decision making. “I wish I could fly,” he said with a sigh as he finished hammering out the chest plate’s dents. “It would have made that fight a lot less hazardous.”

Felicity kicked her legs as she sat on a nearby, fallen trunk that had been repurposed as a bench for multiple workstations. “Well, I think you’d need air elementalism. So, you need to kill and use your super-special dragonbane spell on a dragon from the Elemental Realm of Air.”

“And” Obadai’s voice said from the side as he walked over to the duo, “It is a Seventh Order spell.” He smiled softly, “I apologize for listening in, but I have been bored for the past few hours.”

Tristan glanced over at him, “Fully rested?”

The Archon nodded, “Yes. May I sit?” he asked as he gestured to the bench.

Felicity nodded and patted the seat next to her, “I heard you saved my life.”

Obadai sat down with a sigh, “I did,” he stated as he pulled out his pipe and pushed down some wood chips. Muttering a spell under his breath that Tristan did not catch, a spark flared from his fingertip.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Can you teach me fire elementalism spells?” Tristan asked as he kept hammering away with little taps to get the last of the dents out of the vambraces.