B3 – Chapter 15: Brotherly bonding

The process took about an hour given the number of hands they had available. Tristan walked them through the whole process, just as he had been walked through by his grandfather with the demonic dragon. The only difference was that when they cut in near the rear end and peeled the hide back, they had to pull out to the sides as the scales made it impossible to pull straight up the body and deglove the creature.

By the end Tristan had his fair share of dragon parts in Felicity’s pocket dimension. The students were laden with all types of dragon parts, and they had to leave quite a bit of meat and bone behind as there was just so much. Eloise walked alongside Tristan as they headed back towards The Cove and the rift back to the Mortal Realm. “You did not fail to impress,” she stated loud enough to be heard over the wind.

Tristan smiled softly, “Happy to be impressive.”

“A r-e-a-l dragonslayer,” Felicity said from her spot just inside Tristan’s un-empowered armor, her head poking out just under his chin. “Taking on a big dragon all by himself!”

Eloise frowned slightly, “But you did suffer injury. As far as I am aware, Bertram did not have such an issue.”

Tristan gestured to the chopper-style blade on his back, “I am not as familiar with this type of sword, and this isn’t my armor. I have some…smiths, working on replacements.” He sighed and looked back to the front, “And now I have even more to study. I have to go and get a ton of spells on lightning elementalism, and I haven’t even started into the Third Order spells I can access now-”

Eloise tapped his pauldron with her staff, “You should spend some time in one of our study rooms. They…slightly alter your perception of the flow of time. One day inside is one hour outside. But, you cannot do it for more than a day each week.”

“Why not?” Felicity asked. “Seems really useful.”

“Your mind would unravel,” Eloise replied. “We have timers inside the room, and the door breaks the seal automatically once the time has elapsed.”

“Time is a spell type?” Tristan clarified.

Eloise shook her head, “No. The study hall uses a mind spell. You do not actually experience a full day, but your mind perceives it as such.” She looked at him with a stern expression, and her tone dropped to deadly serious, “The study hall…the cost of using it even a second longer than allowed could result in your immediate death. It is dangerous if unmonitored, but extremely valuable for cramming.”

That’s all the warning I need, Tristan thought as he scratched Felicity’s head. She purred lightly and kicked her hind legs against his abdomen, drawing a chuckle from him. “What are the side effects of using the study room?”

“A wicked headache,” Eloise said with a smirk as her demonic tail swished back and forth slightly under the robes. “But as long as you don’t shut the door again after it opens, and then wait a full week between uses, you should be perfectly safe.”

Felicity poked his chin, “Might be worth doing. Get some of this cramming going.”

Tristan pondered the idea as they walked across the plains. He still kept his eyes toward the skies, and they had to avoid another herd of the Boltstallions, but they made it to The Cove and its massive, fortified gate within a few hours’ time. Tristan had no clue how they actually kept time, as he did not see the sun or moons overhead – the swirling, grey clouds were a constant.

Heading inside the doors, he was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled into a bear hug by Bertram, “You made it back safe!” he said with glee. Pushing Tristan back he let out a little whistle, “And you got messy.”

Rory was behind him, leaning against the gate, and she smiled a haughty grin. “Guess you do share some blood with Bertram.”

Tristan smiled, “Where’s the class you two were with?”

Bertram shrugged, “Finished their task and headed back. I wanted to make sure my little brother was okay.” He punched Tristan’s pauldron, “What did you fight?”

“Adult lightning dragon,” Tristan said matter-of-factly. But, he felt himself swelling up with pride as he shared his achievement with someone who truly understood how difficult such an encounter was.

Bertram cracked a wide smile, “Bring back any blood for your brother?” he asked greedily.

Felicity reached into the pocket dimension and shoved a few vials into Bertram’s hands, which he uncorked and slurped down. The man winced and held his stomach, groaning for a few seconds before he stood up, sweating profusely. “Whew. What a rush!”

Eloise cleared her throat, “Dragonslayers, shall we depart? The class is returning to the Citadel, and I’d rather not have to spend the night in this Realm when I have my lovely chamber back home.” She led the way down the boulevard, and Tristan walked next to Bertram as his half-brother filled him in on their escort mission.

By his account, it was boring and rote. No hostile creatures, though they did see one of the enormous Stormforged constructs far on the horizon. “It was as big as my thumb held up on the horizon,” the fully-Human dragonslayer said as he held his hand up. “Imagine how big it would’ve been up close! Easily a hundred, no, two-hundred feet tall!”

Rory breathed a little sigh of relief, and Tristan’s very attentive ears picked up her muttering, “Thank the gods. I don’t want to fight one of those.”

“Anyways, tell me about your fight!” Bertram said with glee.

Tristan recounted the encounter, and Bertram seemed really excited at his descriptions of his essence-weaving while fighting. Tristan ended with, “I got pretty hurt, but we had healers.”

“See, me, I don’t use essence-weaving during a fight with a dragon. I focus on using my weapons and training. No fancy tricks, no gimmicks.” Bertram clapped a hand around Tristan’s shoulder, “Maybe next time you try that. No spells, just focus on the training.”

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Tristan frowned, “But I’ve got all these amazing spells I have access-”

Bertram squeezed his shoulder tight and his voice dropped slightly, but he spoke with sincerity. “Remember what grandfather taught us; “Master the basics, and don’t move on until you’re ready.” You have fought three dragons now? And each time you got fucked up-”

“Not the time in the Fey Realm,” Tristan countered.

“Right, but you said you were controlling the whole Realm’s ambient essence.”

That reminds me, Tristan thought as he both-direction spun his essence crucible and tried to draw in the ambient essence from the Elemental Realm. To his delight, he could feel a faint trickle of the energy flowing down. Not nearly as much as when he was in the Fey Realm, and he didn’t feel connected to the Realm, but he was able to draw in that little trickle. And his tongue tasted sour berries as he did it, but ceased when he stopped spinning his crucible. “I was,” he said in response to Bertram’s comment.

“You need to master fighting actual dragons, without using spells, before you start using spells.”

Felicity frowned, “It’s not like he can just summon them out of the blue! Or fight them whenever he wants!”

Bertram nodded sagely, “That’s true. I heard the Wild Realm has a bunch of dragons – might be worth going there to train a bit.” He chuckled, “Just make sure you bring me and Rory along to keep you safe. And maybe fork out some of that neat goldwood on elixirs.”

“I can make the elixirs,” Tristan replied.

“No shit? That’ll save a ton of coin,” Rory added. “How much can you make?”