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Sel

Sel was doing more paperwork in her office when a new document from the merchants guild caught her attention.

[ To whom it may concern.

We at the merchant's guild have recently sold the property to the northwest of Telnar. The negotiation and closure of the deal took place at the Telnar merchant's guild branch, and was received by the newly lorded, Leo.

General details regarding the acquisition can be found below, but due to the nature of the trade, much of the information has been redacted.

….]

Sel’s face warped into disbelief as she continued to read. "What crazy bastard thinks it's a good idea to build near the elven border with the looming threat of war?" She muttered confusingly.

[ …. For any further questions regarding the deal please speak with our Telnar branch representative, or speak with Lord Leo, who is staying at the Telnar inn until his home construction order has completed.]

Sel leaned back in her chair. 'The guild doesn't usually skimp on details like this, so I should pay our new neighbor a visit. Hopefully he's not too much of an arrogant-' Her thought was cut short by a knock on her door.

One of her guards entered and informed her that most of the guards had formed up outside the base, and Sel looked at the woman in utter confusion.

Sel blinked while her expression blanked, searching her own memories for as to why it was happening before coming up blank. "The hell do you mean most of the guards outside?" She asked incredulously.

The guard seemed to stumble with her words. "Um, er, well, it was under your orders mam…" The slightly fidgety guard answered.

Sel scowled while she left her office to find out what was going on, and the guard followed close behind.

When Sel walked out of the base, she was greeted with the sight of nearly two hundred of her guards waiting in formation, but none seemed to be wearing their proper equipment.

Sel rubbed her temple, and wore an irritated expression. "Can someone explain to me, what the hell is going on? Because I didn't order an-" Her words caught in her throat as a familiar chill ran up her spine, and soon hundreds of armed selarins poured out of nearby alleyways and buildings, as well as a few dozen armed with crossbows appearing on a few rooftops.

Sel's instincts took over, and she ordered everyone to retreat and take up a defensive position back inside the base, but as she turned around to re-enter the building she was stopped by the blade end of a sword that was being held by the guard that followed her out. Moments later the rest of the remaining guard exited the building, fully armed and preventing anyone from entering the base.

As she realized what was happening, Sel stared the guard right in the eyes with a mournful and disappointed look. “You know what's going to happen to you all, right?” She asked, and the former guard nodded with a hard expression.

“As long as you're aware… Everyone that is still with the guard, stand down. We surrender.”

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Fel

Fel was standing on one of the rooftops while she overlooked the ambush on the town guard, and a smile crossed her face when she heard their peaceful surrender.

Fel breathed a sigh of relief that it worked out so well, mostly because it was one of the few parts that she had complete say in how it was carried out. “I'm glad this went smoothly, especially since It took most of yesterday to set up…” She grumbled before she started to dart from rooftop to rooftop toward the inn.

‘Ok, the soldiers should be clearing out the area around the inn. Hopefully he chooses to join us, if not then I should at least try and convince him to help us. I have some hope given his dislike for the nobility, but I know nothing more since he started using that sound spell. So at the very least I should be able to convince him to help. The worst thing that could happen is that a fight breaks out, but I’d like to avoid killing him, especially after what I spent summoning him.’

Fel leapt to the ground from a roof near the inn, and casually walked over to the entrance. There was a soldier there to give the signal to be ready to fight if the worst case scenario happened. Even though a dragon could easily kill an arch mage, they could wreak all kinds of havoc before that could happen.

Fel just hoped he was reasonable.

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Leo

Leo was spending a relaxing morning in the inn's dining area with Allis and Elaria, while he was casually sketching out potential designs for a proper prototyped magic rifle, as well as messing around with other ideas for magical weaponry. For his first design he pretty much sketched out the American M1, but only visually, since magic made up for all the internals. Leo also thought that other designs would be way too excessive for multiple reasons, because with magic he didn't have to worry about recoil or jamming, and if he wanted he could bump up the power to have it act like a fifty cal.

Some other ideas he noted down were more for things he wanted to make for the hell of it. Like creating a laser rifle, freeze rays, repulsor gauntlets, shrink rays, Mjolnir, and more.

Leo’s pencil slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor, so he casually pulled it back up with his magic. He paused for a moment to stare at the pencil, and realized something that brought a wide childlike smile to his face.

‘Wait a minute, this is basically the force… I can wield the mother fucking force! Oh, ok, a lightsaber is definitely going to be one of the first things that I’ll mess around with trying to make. Now the only question is, what color should it be.…’ He thought gleefully, and a few minutes later he could hear a bunch of commotion coming from outside, then after a moment there was complete silence.

Leo turned to look at Allis and Elaria, and saw that they both were wearing an expression of equal concern. ‘I don't like where this is going… More so if a sketchy cloaked figure walks in.’ He thought, and a moment later it happened.

Leo frowned deeply while he put away his small sketchbook. ‘Really?’ He thought as the figure snapped their head to him.

Leo's eyes widened a bit as he reached for his staff. ‘Ohhhhh, fuck....’ He thought as the figure walked over to him.

When the figure reached the table, there was a tenseness in the air that seemed to increase as they remained silent.

Leo looked cautiously at the cloaked figure. “Uh, hello...friend? Is there something that we can do for you?”

The figure cocked their head. “Well that depends, Leo. How do you feel about how this kingdom is run?”

Leo relaxed a little, because the worst case scenario was taken firmly off the table. ‘Rebels? I like rebels. I can fucks with some rebels… But it's still very unsettling to name drop me like that. Still, best to be blunt.’ He thought as he cast a sound barrier around the four of them.

Leo noticed the figure tense as the cast went through, which revealed that she could sense mana, and he spoke before she could comment on the spell. “I fucking hate it. I hate the abuse. I hate the treatment of its people. I hate the slavery. I hate the guild. I hate the army. I hate the nobility. And I fucking hate the academy.”

The figure stared motionless at Leo, before trying to suppress her laughter. “I assume we're inside your sound spell then.”

Leo’s brow arched, since she not only knew of the spell, but she didn't react to him casting without words. “Okay, my turn to ask a question. How the fuck did you know that?”

The figure let out an amused snort. “I spied on you of course. I don't want to lose track of my summon now, do I?” She answered casually, and Leo’s jaw hung open as he processed what she said, unable to respond to the blatant admission, while Allis and Elaria looked equally as stunned.

The figure chuckled. “If that's a revelation, then I have something even better to show you. But could we go to your room to discuss further? I’d like to take off this stuffy thing, and I do value my privacy.”

Leo nodded, as his mind was still trying to organize the multitude of questions that he wanted to ask her. “Uhh, sure. Allis, Elaria, mind joining me and the walking plot development?” He asked the two slightly dazed selarins, who both nodded in response.

As they made their way down, a nagging thought crept into Leo’s mind. ‘If she's revealing herself now, then her plans are moving forward, or whatever she was planning got screwed…. Oh, I did just become a lord….. Wait, has she been spying on me since I was summoned?... No, then that would mean she left me stranded in the forest for nearly three days…….. No….. Wait...’

When they got to the room, Leo made sure to cast another sound barrier on the door, and entered to find Allis and Elaria blocking his path. The two of them were frozen in place, so he stepped around them to see the now de-cloaked mystery woman.

She was five and half foot tall and looked like a ‘relatively’ slim human, beside some very obvious differences. She had thick white horns on the sides of her head that looped around to point to the front of her. Her skin was a fair white with hard looking scales that trailed along her body in clustered patterns.

‘If it wasn’t for the length of her rough tail being nearly five feet, she would have a close resemblance to the ‘Au ra’ from final fant…..’

Leo’s mind started to mentally make the connections as all the information suddenly fell into place.

“Oh, she's a dragon….”

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Fel

Fel was elated at the fact that Leo had a dislike for the established systems, but that probably meant that the whole ‘getting him to hold a grudge’ plan was completely unneeded, and the stories her grandfather told her about the last summon seemed completely useless, since Leo either did the exact opposite or progressed way too fast for how he described them.

Summoning magic was like randomly pulling something out of an ocean of infinite worlds, so it being ‘dangerous’ was putting it lightly. If the caster didn't have a solid, clear, and specific intent for what they wanted to summon then it could be deadly, even for a dragon. In fact, it is a well known secret among dragons that over half of the eras were caused either by a summon, or a botched attempt. The sixth, and tenth eras being the worst cases of ‘fuck ups’ for the dragons.

Luckily the drawbacks for summoning deters almost every dragon from doing it, since doing it permanently lessens the ability for a dragon to shift between forms. It only takes more than two summons to be stuck in whatever form they're left in.

Fel wondered if Leo’s fast progress and aligned feelings had to do with her using raw desire to summon him, and that maybe he was in fact her perfect ideal. There are stories of dragons who used their desire to summon people or items that reflected their true wants, but it was even more dangerous since not many know what they truly want. So a few of those stories usually ended with the dragon dead, because a dragon could summon a horrifying monster that represented their deepest selves.

A half hearted smile crossed her face. ‘It might be fanciful thinking, but hopefully it’s not too far off. It would mean that he’d just join us if I explained ourselves to him.’ She thought while she removed her cloak.

Fel showed an amused expression at her visibly shocked audience. “The name is Fel'aristriza Quitial'tis, but you can call me Fel. And by your expressions I seemed to have topped my previous surprise by a sizable margin.” She remarked pridefully.

Leo seemed to drop from surprised to completely unimpressed. “Eh, maybe, but I couldn't honestly give any less of a fuck.”

Fel blinked in confusion. “Uh, excuse me?” She asked while a little taken aback.

Leo rolled his eyes. “Look, I can guess that you're here because I've somehow fucked your ‘plans’, probably due to me becoming a lord, though if you were spying on me then I'm more surprised you didn't reveal yourself when I leveled up into an arch mage.” He explained bluntly.

Fel gawked at Leo for a moment, then became slightly irritated. “Alright, if we're being blunt then I should admit that you single handedly took a planned schedule that was supposed to stretch out over a year, and squashed it into just a little over a week. Which caused me to experience mana depletion for the first time, so fuck you for that.”

Leo smiled. “Well consider it pay back for leaving me stranded and alone in a forest, oh and if you didn't, then fuck you for just watching.”

Fel was going to retort, but sheepishly broke eye contact.

Leo's expression fell into disbelief, and his jaw hung for a moment at her reaction. “You were watching me! Do you have any Idea how much dehydration fucking hurts!” He yelled irritably.

Fel mentally rolled her eyes. ‘Probably not as bad as mana depletion….’

Fell sighed and knew that she would have to take the blame for that, knowing that it wasn't even her idea. “I'm sorry for that. I should have talked to you as soon as I summoned you, but I didn't for two reasons and one of which was for my safety.”

Leo narrowed his eyes for a moment before dropping the front. “Fine, apology accepted. Can't quite stay mad at the person that brought me here, since this world would be considered a literal fantasy where I'm from. I've even experienced every child's, and most adults, dream to fly freely through the sky. So holding a grudge would be petty... But still, fuck you for that.” He ended jokingly.

Fel barked a small laugh. “Fair. So back to the reason that I'm here. I want you to join our takeover of selaria, and I won't share anything more with you unless you agree to join.”

Leo furrowed his brow and his lips curled into a slight frown. “Hm, I'd like the answer to a question first. How did the dragons rip out the last summoned soul, and was the process quick?”

Fel was confused by the seemingly random question. “Um, well it's not really a soul. It's actually their consciousness that was bonded with entrapped mana, and it takes quite a bit of effort and time to accomplish, especially ripping out someone's consciousness. It's more like a ritual than a spell.”

A wide smile grew onto Leo’s face. "Alright then, I would like you to kindly fuck off.”

“Excuse me?”

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