Forager

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Though some point in history one of the poor sods had dropped in and gotten it's ass sent hurtling out of its teeth. The general history of the valley was as vague as the aberrant mountains eclipsing it, a place utterly forgotten by the cities a mere day's march away. It's present state of affairs were far more enrapturing than its mysterious past, though. Nowadays, dragons flocked to the valley, challenged the incorporeal beast that lived inside it, and carked it as fast as a boozer gifted a free brewery.

Animals were predictable. No matter the size or ‘intelligence’, they all had glaring habitual flaws that could be exploited. Dragons, for example, were apex dominators with no sense of humility in their seven hearts. When a dragon sees a pile of their kind’s corpses, their survival instincts don’t tell them to run. Where other animals saw a warning, dragons saw a challenge. And that was why a valley packed to its seams with decaying dragon corpses was completely and utterly irresistible.

After all, you never saw dragons dying of pompous, frilly causes like age or disease. Dragons died in battle a shocking majority of the time, their bloated egos killing them as evenly as whatever creature did them in. To be fair, said egos were usually quite well placed. They lived their lives as the dominators of nearly every ecosystem, laying waste to every creature that so much as pissed in their territory.

But here in the valley, they met their match. The Valley of the Reaver was, in all bluntness, a burial ground. Dragons were mighty beasts of sheer might and titanic size, but they stood no chance against the Reaver itself. Here in the valley, the scaly twerps were about as tough as a fat cap on a porkchop. That was why Selia loved it here. City life was noisy and stressful, the struggle to fit in a constant siphon of energy. You know what wilderness life was like? Dangerous, physically taxing, and utterly exhilarating.

Distant thunderclaps rang through the valley, snapping Selia’s attention away from her experiments. The telltale sound of a dragon’s wings was easily discernible, especially in a valley practically devoid of life. The black stone mountainsides on either side of the valley were completely and utterly lifeless. No vegetation, no chittering bugs or birds. It was as if life had forgotten this place just as well as the people had. Wind was the only audible companion to the place, the eerie silence finally scattering in the wake of the dragon’s arrival.

The Reaver and she were the only creatures who actually seemed to enjoy the isolation of the valley. Other creatures turned tail as soon as they entered the perimeter of the aberrant mountains, instinctually mortified of a near-uninhabited wasteland. Even bugs didn't venture into the valley, despite there being large colonies of gerichats and ants in the forest just beside it. Dragons seemed the only exception, flinging themselves into the valley with reckless abandon. It spoke volumes about the brains of dragons, most specifically their tendency to-

Focus. She thought, forcing herself out of her thoughtful stupor. Packing away her current experiment, she fumbled with the stopper on a vial of dragonblood. This particular specimen was from a RootWinder, a peculiar example of the unity between animals and plants. The blood was a stark white, like the ‘blood’ often found in severed plants. The dragon’s entire body was constructed of individual plants, held together by little more than a fleshy exoskeleton. It was one of the only-

Focus! She snapped, palming her forehead as she threw the vial into her bag. A dragon was nearing the valley, its reptilian little mind dead set on trying its hand at facing the valley’s champion.

“Blessed little idiot.” She mumbled to the distant beast, snatching a small leather string from her ‘desk’. It was an imaginative word for two tall rocks and a board of wood, but it did its deskly duties well enough. Whipping around to the small mirror on the corner of the wooden abomination, Selia pulled her hair back and began tying it into a shoddy ponytail. Once, her hair had been a stark black. The kind that shined in the sunlight and sucked up heat so much it hurt, with enough glossy sheen to blind a fellow.

It was still black, but… Well, now parts of it were purple. She hadn’t quite expected that to be an acute side effect of experimenting with dracomancy, but it was indeed a fascinating one. The light purple strands popped up just as gray ones did on an aging chap’s head, offsetting the previous raven black by a substantial degree. Whether it meant she was rotting away from the supposed ‘necrotic side effects’ of dracomancy that Velenbar preached of, she had no idea. Selia smiled at the strands of purple, musing to herself.

Necrosis my ass. Purple looks damn good on me. She grinned to herself in the mirror, confidently propping her hands on her hips. Velenbar preached plenty of royal bogus, why believe a single word of what those industrial chumps had to say? Besides, it seemed like a damn good way to dispel citizens from using dracomancy. ‘Draconic necrosis’ wasn’t a real disease. If it was, Selia would be dead. So would King Vangreas of Velenbar, the lord of hypocrisy.

The distant booms grew closer at startling speed, forcing her attention away from the hunk in the mirror. Jamming two small earplugs in, then covering them with a set of thick earmuffs, she waited.

Her preparations were rewarded as the dragon burbled a primal roar. The peaceful silence of the valley died with a knife in the gut, the sound exploding outward with immense force. If there was one thing dragons were good at, it was being loud. Their roars could be heard from miles away, which could be downright overwhelming when you were mere meters away. Selia’s body shook with the sound, the rolling echoes thrumming deep within her bones.

Some sort of glacial dragon. She thought lethargically, trying to gauge the species by roar alone. You could tell a lot about a dragon by the way it roared. Some dragons bleated like living horns, rolling the sound in a shuddering warcry. Others yet howled like scourge-hounds, their roars raw and blunt with little room for fanciful undertones. This dragon was the former. Its cry resonated through the valley like an orchestra, a series of echoing chatters beneath a blanket of scream.

After several seconds, the dragon finally let its roar lapse. It echoed across the barren stone mountains on either side for several seconds, the desolate scape giving no vegetational cushion to quiet the sound. As the echoes grew distant, Selia lunged for her pack. Slinging the enormous burden over her shoulder, she flung the tent flaps open and ran out to the valley’s lip. A ravine-like scar ran between the two mountainsides, filled with spires of bone and decay.

Thankfully, she caught the dragon on the way down. It swept into the valley with awesome speed, stocky hind legs absorbing the impact as it slammed into an open patch of stone. Fumbling with her pocket, Selia withdrew a spyglass and peered at the dragon from her perch. Though she’d known it to be a glacial dragon by the roar alone, that hint narrowed it down by little. She needed the exact species to be able to conduct research properly, and there were over three dozen species to differentiate from. Her mind rifled through characteristics, comparing scale patterns and bone structures.

The dorsal spine was grown of a membrane-thin layer of ice, marked in sections by equidistant quill-like protrusions . It ended just before the tail, which was comparatively short to other dragons in its class. That narrowed it down to seventeen possible glacial species. Its facial structure narrowed it down to two, unusually long snout donning thousands of needle-like teeth. Muscular hind legs were its primary limbs for locomotion, with four smaller arms for crawling and swiping. Its wings were textbook, a thin membrane running between outcropping bones, a glossy overcoat of frost coating the entire ordeal.

Selia squinted, mind darting between the two possible species.

Glacierwyrm…? She guessed, lowering the spyglass. Then she saw it. Snapping the spyglass back in place, she found the dragon’s pupils were horizontal like a goat’s, rather than vertical like most dragons.

“Hailreigner!” She gasped, growing giddy with excitement. It had been a while since she’d had the pleasure of foraging a hailreigner, the last time having been interrupted by uninvited company. It was getting increasingly difficult to run these experiments, with the goons of Velenbar so desperate to drag her in.

Selia sat back, watching the dragon with keen interest. In less than a minute, it would be dead. She had to be especially keen observing the dragon’s final moments to glean as much data as possible. Besides, it seemed respectful to spectate the creature’s final act of independence. It chose this fate, to put its life on the line for the chance at some sort of metaphorical crown. To be the only victor in a field of thousands of the fallen… The exhilaration alone would be worth the while for these creatures. It would be a euphoria beyond what any human could comprehend, a bliss beyond what language could convey.

Withdrawing her pocketbook, she took out her pen and began to scrawl down a notation about the dryness of this specimen’s scales. Without warning, the dragon howled another resonating cry. Selia grunted, one of her earmuffs having fallen to her cheek without her notice. The sound slammed into her abruptly enough to force her hands to her ears, flinging the notebook over the valley’s edge. She cursed, her sudden lack of ability to properly notate tremendously bothersome.

Forcing the earmuff back in place, she reigned in her traitorous limbs and tried to calm her breathing. She shook fiercely, shuddering as if caught in a fit of the chills. A deep breath in through the nose, a slow breath out through the mouth. It took her a few repetitions, but eventually her heart slowed to a manageable pace. Not the best profession for one who was easily overwhelmed by sound, but the benefits outweighed the costs by leagues.

As the dragon trampled over the skeletons of its fallen companions, the Reaver finally made its appearance. Selia perked up, utterly forgetting the fact that she’d been shaking as the creature appeared. The dark stone walls of the valley began to bleed a gray miasma, the entire valley filling up with a misty veil of darkness. The dragon took a precautionary series of steps backward, maneuvering its elongated neck to try and locate its foe. Whispers sounded all around, the valley erupting with a chorus of quiet howls and indiscernible phrases. Regular wraiths could only manage one or two whispering voices, but the Reaver itself? It made thousands.

The dragon found its enemy after a moment, the enormous wraith hanging half-emerged from one of the valley walls. ‘The Reaver’ was a title, rather than a proper species name. In all actuality, the creature was a dire-wraith. That meant it was the only dire-wraith to exist, just like every other one of the dire. That meant it was impossibly rare, impossibly powerful, and impossibly fascinating. Selia grinned, excitedly clenching and unclenching her fists. In a few seconds, the dragon would be dead. It was an irrefutable fact, one that the dragon wasn’t clued in on.

Slinking out of the wall, the Reaver maladroitly stared down it's new challenger. Wraiths were usually gritty and mortifying, but the Reaver seemed a stark contradiction to the stereotype. Regular wraiths were malformed, the skulls of animals grafted onto misshapen human skeletons. On top of their mangled forms, they were born in ratty cloths that could never be swapped out. They were mischievous beings of hate and anger, though if Selia were born that ugly she would be too.

The Reaver on the other hand, bolstered by the unique powers granted by being born a dire, was elegant and beautiful. This being’s bones were of a pristine to a fault, the sun’s light casting a radiant array of opaline colors from their surfaces. Covering its glimmering skeleton were billowing crimson robes, regal enough to sit atop a king's shoulders. The garment was made as if constructed by a battalion of the worlds finest seamstresses, a garment so elegant it put human fashion to shame. Its glowering form seemed to only amplify the creature’s regality, standing a good four or five Selia’s tall. In layman's terms, the creature was huge.

From its glimmering skull billowed a massive head of hair formed entirely of stark white mist, tendrils floating carelessly several feet behind its skull. Both the hair and the royal robes it donned floated upward softly, heedless to the trivialities of gravity. It was the only Dire that Selia had ever seen, but she got the inkling that all of the beings were equally as majestic. It was said that the dire were born of divinity itself, the dying god Rin choosing animals over mankind to bless in his final moments. Wise choice, that one. Animals weren’t instinctually greedy, didn’t constantly try to undermine each other, and hadn’t invent taxes.

The dragon burbled another challenge, pushing its weight onto its hind legs. Swinging her legs over the valley lip, Selia perched her chin atop her fist and began the count. As the dragon leapt forward on its stocky hind legs, the Reaver’s form undulated. Rippling like a reflection on water, the Reaver’s body went from a solid to a indefinite, incorporeal liquid. As the dragon struck, it passed completely through its foe without leaving so much as a scratch.

Turning confusedly, the dragon reoriented itself to try and strike again. As it did, its legs buckled from beneath itself. The dragon’s eyes went wide with terror as it slunk to the ground. It was an easy emotion to see in a creature, human or animal. Its iris trembled, draconic jaw slacking in bafflement. Howling helplessly, a geyser of bloody frost began surging uncontrollably from its maw.

“Oh you little bastard.” Selia mumbled to the Reaver, dragging a hand down her face. Damn wraith knew what organs were most important to her research, didn't he? Of all the juicy vital organs it could have targeted, it just HAD to target the element bladder?

Within seconds, the creature’s body would be…

There it is. She thought, sighing loudly.

Spires of ice shot out of the dragon’s flesh in discordant troves, puncturing the scales and impaling the poor thing in dozens of places. Element bladders were sensitive things, and tended to react fiercely when struck directly. Sighing, Selia slipped on a pair of dragonscale boots. It wasn’t easy being a scientist, when forces of nature enjoyed annoying the holy hell out of you. Taking a vial of dragonblood from her pocket, she poured the softly glowing liquid onto the boots. The cracks in-between the scales began to glow with a harsh orange light, imbuing them with the power of dracomancy.

Hauling her pack up around her shoulders, she sucked in a deep breath and stepped up to the lip of the chasm. Her stomach, nor her mind, liked what came next. Closing her eyes, she gritted her teeth and leapt off the side of the cliff feet-first. Wind yanked her into an uninvited embrace, her body immediately beginning to panic. Fair reaction, that. A jump like this would put an average bloke’s pelvis in their stomach on impact, but with dracomancy…

Hitting the solid stone with a thump, the boots exploded in a shower of vibrant orange sparks. The effect made it look like she’d just landed in an open campfire, but made it so her legs didn't so much as ache by the fall.

Didn’t throw up this time! She thought happily, quickly setting to surveying the valley floor for her dropped notebook. As she searched, the Reaver’s musings grew increasingly loud. It materialized in front of her, the enormous being craning its skeletal neck to look down upon her.

“Hi.” She waved halfheartedly towards the creature, upturning rocks and bones. It watched her with curiosity, not making any move to attack.

“Happen to see my notebook anywhere, big guy?” She asked earnestly. A series of whispery howls ensued, vaguely akin to a pack of wolves being skinned alive.

“Is that… A no?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. The Reaver rolled its eyes, the glowing dots within the abyssal blackness of its sockets drawing a definitive circle. It pointed with a bony digit to a small pile of nearby carrion. Selia jogged up to it, finding her notebook nestled snugly between a shattered skull and a goopy pile of viscera. Luckily for her, the notebook had landed beside the pile of flesh sludge, leaving it perfectly dry.

“Thanks!” She grinned, snatching the notebook up and ripping it open to the page about the Reaver. Excitedly fumbling with her pen, she set to scrawling.

“While it was previously established that the Reaver was capable of human emotion, something truly fascinating just occurred. The Reaver rolled its eyes at me, a startingly human gesture. This creature is not only starkly intelligent, but capable of quick-time processing of its own reactionary emotions and outputting proper bodily reactions. In short, this is a creature intelligent enough to be SARCASTIC!”

It was a terrible notation, but she had business to be about. There was always time to ‘professionalize’ the passage later, but for now she just needed a brief summary. She snapped the notebook shut, shooting a giddy smile towards the dire-wraith. It watched in bafflement as she strolled by it, climbing a pile of bones to get to the fresh meat.

While the dire-wraith tended to heartlessly dispatch any dragon that dropped into the valley, it had never once tried to attack her. Curiosity simply ran both ways, she supposed. The creature was ages old, and very few humans had the balls to jump into a valley full of dragon corpses. That made Selia a spectacle of sorts, was all. Silently, the Reaver slunk back into its home within the walls of the valley. That left her alone, weaving between discarded carcasses and spires of bone.

The smell had been pungent the first few times she’d ventured into the valley, enough to force her lunch out, but she was somewhat used to it now. It wasn't a field of flowers, aye, but dragons didn't decay as regular animals did. First of all, their bodies decayed at startling speed. It only took a week for a dragon’s features to be undefinable, their flesh tending to melt once slain. That was why time was so vital to her experiments. Once extracted from the body, a constant stream of dragonblood could completely prevent a piece of a dragon from decaying.

On top of that, their flesh didn’t rot quite at all. As it liquefied, its mass slowly evaporated into the air. This process was far less rancid smelling than any other animal, but the smell was still unpleasant. Like someone had whipped up a keg of herbal tea, brewed with hot piss instead of water. Not as bad as rotting flesh, but still quite nasty.

After a few minutes of navigating between melted dragon corpses and spires of dried skeletal remains, she finally reached the fresh meat. The felled beast stared with wide eyes at the valley wall, unbelieving of its demise even in death. Selia sighed, resting a hand on the creature’s desecrated form. Daggers of ice shot out in a radius from the creature’s severed element bladder, the magic that kept it alive betraying it in its final moments.

No use letting the creature go to waste, though. Despite its mangled nature, there was still plenty of good material to harvest. Dragonwing membrane, dragon scales, and as much blood as she could gather lay ripe for the taking. These things would fetch untold fortunes in the black market, but Selia had no need nor interest in such trivialities. These experiments were priceless, as was the power granted to her by dracomancy.

“Thank you for your sacrifice.” She whispered earnestly, setting down her pack and withdrawing a dragonbone knife. Taking a deep breath, she rammed the knife into one of the dragon’s bleeding wounds. When she pulled it free, the blade’s previously invisible runes glowed with a radiant blue light. Snowflakes dripped free from the blade, a pittance of the creature’s magic now hers to keep. Dragon skeletons were caked in runes, always alight with magic from the constant influx of dragonblood. Once the sod was wholly carked, though, you had to periodically imbue its scale and bone to properly put it to use.

Skimming the blade along the dragon’s spine, she set to work. Luckily for her, the creature had fallen onto its side once it died. That left the spine at a perfect height to cut into. It was arduous, to remove the important bits from a dragon. Skinning something like a deer was easy, what with the guts being all slippery and fall-out-able. A dragon, on the other hand, had several of each organ, each of which were deep in a curtain of protective muscle. There wasn’t an inch of empty space inside the bastards’ bodies, which made reaching their internal organs a total chore. This beast's organs weren't worth trying for, with the element bladder severed. Some bones were broken as well, but most of the vertebrae were still intact.

Slipping on a pair of thin dragonwing gloves, she imbued them both in the dragon’s rivers of blood. They came out slightly cold, the cracks weaving between the scales glowing with a soft blue light. The things packed enough draconic punch to be ready for combat, but her uses for them were admittedly more mundane. Dragonblood was terrifically sticky, so she didn’t want to get any on her hands. If the gloves were told that, they would likely feel utterly useless. Best to let them think their purpose was some holy, legendary quest.

As she parted the muscle clinging to the spine, the Reaver abruptly began to howl. The chorus of sound startled her, the knife nearly falling out of her grip. She whipped around, trying to discern why the Reaver was so angry. It was a chorus of shrill screams, like an orphanage packed past capacity was aflame. Shaking, she forced her earmuffs back over her ears and surveyed the corpse heap behind her.

Her eyes widened. The Reaver wasn’t howling because it was angry.

It was howling to warn her.

A small force of four heavily armored soldiers poked out from a decaying dragon ribcage, their armor catching the scarce rays of light just enough to make them visible.

“CHARGE!!!” A gruff man screamed, realizing they’d been spotted. His compatriots did so maladroitly, often checking their rear anxiously. The Reaver still howled with a primal rage, but made no move to kill the men.

“Lady of Wyrms, in the name of king Vangreas of Velenbar, we will apprehend you!!” He howled, his underlings charging in a shoddy formation.

“Lady of… Wow. That one’s new.” She cocked her head, calmly skimming the knife along the dragon’s chain spine. There were dozens of chain spines surrounding the spine proper, little bite-sized spines that were perfect for true dracomancy. Cutting a single vertebrae free, she flourished it towards the soldiers. Its runes glowed fiercely, even through the sticky layer of dragonblood coating it.

“You guys really don’t have to do this. I don’t want to hurt you, any of you.” She put calmly, nerves as cold as iron. They charged nonetheless, sword and spears upraised. It seemed their definition of ‘apprehend’ was a bit different than her own. She sighed.

“I’m sorry in advance.” She muttered uncomfortably. Gritting her teeth, she charged directly towards the closest soldier. Ducking beneath a shoddy attempt at a beheading, she lurched forward and shoved the vertebrae into the man’s chestplate.

“Sorry.” She muttered as the imbued vertebrae activated.

Ice ruptured outward from the vertebrae, growing in an enormous array of random peaks and spires. The man was sent hurtling backward across the valley floor, spinning and rolling as if struck by a boulder. Grimacing, she watched them hit a pile of bones with a crunchy thump. The rest of them screamed, charging with an angry vigor. When would they learn? When would they just leave her be??

“For the honor of Velenbar!!” A gruff man screamed, voice nauseatingly laden with misplaced patriotism. Selia weaved out of the way of his swing, the blade whizzing above her head.

“Come on, guys!! There's serial killers and puppy-kickers out there and you’re wasting resources on me?” She pleaded, rummaging through her sash to find a vertebrae glowing with purple runes. It was wise to always have imbued vertebrae on hand, specifically for when armored wimps interrupted your scientific endeavors.

She took no pleasure in fighting the soldiers. It was as if their enthusiasm for their city was loud enough to drown out every word she said. They charged, they missed all of their attacks, and Selia was again forced to hurt them. Angry at the unbreakable cycle, she weaved out of the way of a thrusted spear and rammed the vertebrae into one of the soldier’s faceplates.

A cloud of purple spores erupted into the air, catching all three of the remaining soldiers in the field. They coughed, two of them swaying in place before dropping to the floor like stones. Their leader, however, charged right through the cloud with longsword upraised.

“Foolish witch! I chewed on bleatbark to counter your little games!” The gruff man spat, cleaving downward. Selia yelped, catching the blade with her dragonwing gloves. Imbued as they were, the strike punched as if she’d been hit by a practice sword, but refused to cut through.

“Bleatbark?? The wife won’t be too pleased with that. It causes complete male impotence within a few doses.” Selia warned. It was true, the stuff could make a log a sapling within a few doses. Terrible, terrible stuff.

“Lies! You deceive me to gain the upper hand!” The man spat, yanking his blade away.

“No. I’m just trying to talk to you. I'm not a threat to you people! Why don’t you understand-”

Selia grunted as the man landed his first strike. The blade of his sword slammed into her ribs, sending her reeling. It struck like a solid kick, but the blade refused to cut through her cloak. She’d woven a membrane of dragonwing into the lining of her trusty cloak, one she had to re-imbue every morning. It cost her steeply in dragonblood, but it had just saved her life. The man confusedly tried to strike again, this time angled right for her head. She ducked beneath it, panicking and grabbing a vertebrae from her bag at random.

He landed a quick jab with his sword, its point driving into her shoulder. Still, the cloak blocked the attack well enough to not draw blood. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the pain and ramming the vertebrae into the man’s knee.

A shudder of purple energy engrossed the man, like an army of tiny hands crawling across his body. A circle of shimmering color formed around him, like a distant mirage of an angry violet hue. Transparent purple shackles tore out of the ground, binding his arms and legs as he was yanked to his knees.

“I am not the bad guy.” She whispered solemnly, watching the man thrash against his phantom bonds.

“LIES! You endanger all of Velenbar with your treason!” The man screamed, repetitively screaming like a child trying to drown out the voice of a parent as she tried to retort. Selia sighed, rubbing her temple and turning away. She hated the fact that so many people hated her for what she did. She was just a girl following her aspirations, wasn’t that supposed to be encouraged in the innovational powerhouse of Velenbar?

Not when it misaligns with Vangreas’s hypocrisy. Selia thought with frustration. A drake, ruling over a city of humans. A drake, born of dracomancy, outlawing all dracomancy. Bastard.

“Tell Vangreas I said hi.” She muttered, probably too quiet for the squealing man-child to hear. Abruptly, the man and his purple puddle of magic ruptured in a spectrum of purple light. As the light dissipated, the man was gone. He would find himself back wherever he had woken up this morning, accompanied by a skull-splitting headache. He would also piss purple for the next few days, a startling but mostly harmless side effect.

Over the course of the next few minutes, she corralled the rest of the unconscious soldiers and sent them all hurtling back home. VoidRenders were rare dragons, and using some of the seldom few vertebrae she had seemed sacrosanct. Nonetheless, it sent the men home quickly enough to get proper medical care. After they were all gone, Selia let out a sigh of relief.

“Thanks, Reaver.” She shouted, casting a thumbs-up towards the wall of the valley. A phantom, skeletal arm emerged from it, casting a twin gesture towards her before disappearing.

She grinned, her sour mood dissipating in an instant. The fact that a wraith, dire or not, could understand and replicate human gestures was utterly enrapturing. Excitedly tearing open her notebook, she scrawled down the notation beneath her previous one. After she was done, she propped her hands on her hips and sucked in a deep breath. A slight bump in the road, but one that could easily be ignored.

There was still a dragon to forage, after all.