The Divine Druid: A Contributed Effort - book 3, page 7
“Lady Babymetal, I have come to free you. I have met the black lady and have already freed her of what has been done to your kind. Please trust me to free you also.” At first the young lady looked like she was going to run away. Then stopped and looked down at him and whispered. “I will trust you.” Tinker first examined her and found she was not badly wounded but had lacked proper food for a long time. So he first healed her and refreshed her health by offering a prayer to St. Francis of Assisi for his aid in bringing her back to her proper self. Then once he had seen that done he removed the magic in the branded mark and healed the runic circle upon her neck. Then he examined her again and could see the death ritualist magic that held her dragon form into the young woman she was currently. He started to remove it but stopped and said in a very woeful tone of voice. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to require from you, but I can’t release you until you take an oath to not attack peaceful people or the places they live. You can of course attack those who attack you or your home or property. I ask this of you because you more than your kin have suffered the most in this, but If I don’t try to limit the amount of damage now. I would be no better than the one who did this to you. Again I’m sorry.”
The young woman now able to move and think without that ritual mark upon her says. “I swear to follow your oath for the rest of my days.” Just as Tinker's grandfather steps out of one of the buildings with a chest floating along behind him all can hear the deep gong sound that seems to come from the now glowing young woman and Tinker walks over and touches her shoulder and breaks the ritual that had been placed and attached to her magical core. Once Tinker has seen that he has succeeded he steps away and the young woman becomes a large silver dragon. She looks at herself and then leans over and brushes a kiss upon Tinker's head with her dragon lips then jumps up into the skies roaring in joy and flys off. As Tinker is watching the Silver Dragon fly off his grandfather says. “Did I just see you transform a poor young woman into a silver dragon?” Tinker calls Dan over and after asking would he rather run on the ground chasing them or take a short trip flying away from here. If the shadow forest wolf's body language had any say in it, it would rather run. But Dan walked over and sat before him with his eyes closed tight and Tinker took it as an agreement and placed a float spell on them both and at the nod from his grandfather they cast their air blasts spell once to get up high and a seconded time to out and were up and gone.
They had managed to fly away with no issues until a gust of wind hit them and forced them to turn and head westerly. At first mage Bufford Splinterton thought someone or actually a group of someones were trying to force them away from going east. But neither he nor Tinker could sense magic in the strong winds. But as the two flew and the winds assisted them to fly faster Tinker recognized the area below them as the one he first met Garain Stonefoot and his dwarven caravan at.
Tinker looked closely at the grounds below them but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he turned his sight to see what was ahead of them, which was mountains. At first Tinker didn’t think much of it outside, he hoped they landed near some small village as he didn’t think he had enough travel food for them to have a full stomach tonight or tomorrow morning. As they flew on, Tinker could see they wouldn’t make it over the mountain ridges that were coming up unless they climbed higher again as they had managed to only have floated down to a few feet above the tree top level. So he waved at his grandfather and once he was looking over at him he used the mental magic and said. “Grandfather, we are going to need to climb high to get over those cliffs ahead of us. I have been watching the grounds below us and haven’t seen any places that would be good to land and camp at, also I don’t think I have enough travel food for us to all have a full stomach tonight.” His grandfather just nodded his head and released another upward air blast which Tinker followed right behind him.
They managed to pass over the cliff tops and found they were flying over a high somewhat forested and farmed valley as they were losing height flying along Tinker saw what looked like an orc raiding army attacking a stone walled town that was being defended by dwarfs. There were a few fires about the edges of the inside walls but it didn’t look like anything major was burning away. As they drew closer, Tinker saw they had been noticed as a few dwarves had lifted their crossbows and pointed them at them. Tinker said. “Grandfather, do you know how to interact with the dwarves?” For his answer his grandfather lifted his hands out to his sides open palm toward the ones that were pointing their crossbows at them. The both of them held that pose as they floated down into the dwarf town and its defenders with their crossbows. Just as they reached the town's roof tops they could hear a bellow of “What in the bones of the mountains are you doing floating about up there Mage Tinker? Please don’t tell me Dem pointy ears have gone an grown on ye as so you can’t be getting enough of the high open air?”
Tinker looked down and started to laugh as he spotted Hendle Stonefoot waiting for them to float on down. Hendle had waved the others to lower their bows by the time they floated down onto the town street. Once they were on the ground Tinker released Dan who laid out on the ground and looked like he was licking it. Hendle was looking at the wolf and Tinker said. “Hendle my friend allow me to introduce Dan, my fey shadow forest wolf guardian. And my grandfather mage Bufford Splinterton. We have been sent here it seems by a stiff wind, to aid you it seems. How long have they been at your front gates here?” Hendle nodded his head at the wolf and offered his hand to shake with his grandfather in greeting and replied. “Oh two days ago, we sent for reinforcements but it seems we have split ourselves a might lean in our reserves of late. What with those hydro farms of yours working so well many of our fighting men have gone and turned to working them.”
Chapter 5
His grandfather tilted his head when he heard the dwarf say something about a hydro farm of his grandsons? Just then a fireball flew over the wall and was headed toward a building not made of stone. Tinker placed an air blast in front of it and blew it back over the wall into the mix of orcs and their lizard dogs that were rushing the town's walls. “I take it you’re here to heal the ones injured? Need any help?” Hendel chuckled and said. “From you? Always. Come on lads, let's get to the worst hurt or we are going to miss out on all the fun.”
So Hendle led them along with the other dwarfs to a medical station that had been cleared of unneeded things like chairs and such so they could lay the badly injured out on the floor in need of healing.When Hendle led Tinker and his grandfather in only one or two of the healers had started to protest until Hendle pulled Tinker over to the worst hurt dwarf in the place and Tinker went to work on healing him. He had no sooner finished with that one than another was brought before him. It seemed like a day had passed before he had no more dwarfs in need of healing. Tinker sank down and was looking for his water flask when someone handed him a tankard of ale.
Tinker said thanks and took a long swallow then sighed and found Janacey standing beside him smiling down at him. Tinker took another swallow and then said. “Janacey, Hello. I hope you haven’t been hurting your knuckles on any of them hard headed dwarves.” Janacey just chuckled and replied. “Naaa, I left Garain to do all that. I just scout the knuckleheads out and lead him to them.” They both chuckle at that, Tinker empties the tankard and looks around for his grandfather and only finds Dan waiting against the wall watching him and everyone that walks in and out. Tinker sighs and asks. “By chance you didn’t see an older fellow human mage here, did you? And which way did he go?” Tinker had a pretty good idea, but wanted to ensure before he moved off to see what he can do to help out against these orcs. Tinker checked himself and found he had only used a quarter of his magic in healing those dwarfs. So when Janacey shook his head no as to seeing his grandfather he handed the tankard back off to Janacey and stood up and headed off toward the town wall with Janacey and Dan following him.
Tinker looked over his shoulder at Janacey and said. “Oh, where's my manners. Janacey, this is Dan, a fey shadow forest wolf, one of three of my guardians. Dan, this is Janacey, a dwarf scout and hunter, also a friend.” The two looked at each other then nodded and continued to follow Tinker followed the sounds of fighting until he reached the outer defense wall and sighed as he looked at all the stairs. Tinker shrugged his shoulders and started climbing them, as he reached the top he found his grandfather tossing lightning bolts and fireballs at the orcs as they advanced with long ladders. Tinker tilted his head and asked. “Hey, can anyone join in the fun here or are only you elders allowed?” His grandfather chuckles and replies. “You're not too old for a good back end spanking, boy.” Just then Garain Stonefoot walked up and said.
“I’ll warn ya now old man, Tinker here is mighty scary when he joins in with that dance of his. His partners have all ended up dead. Just so ya warned and all. Tinker, If you have the strength left after healing all of them that was close to death's door to add to the fun here, why you just go ahead and help yourself to as many as you want, just don’t kill all of them ok? Some of us have just got here.” Tinker chuckled at Garain and turned toward the still advancing forces. He looked at them and then at the grounds they were running over. And smirked as he quickly reworked his defensive wall spell and had it transmute the ground rocks into an oily high burning substance.
He figured the shale rocks that covered the grounds out there transmuted into a high temp burning fuel..like gasoline.. Should give everyone a chance to pick out the dancing burning targets. He rechecked his workings then targeted the largest groups and released his new spell and ducked behind the wall and called out. “Take Cover” And just as everyone ducked and did as he had placing their backs to the stone defense wall a loud whoosh sound could be heard and a wave of hot air ran past the top of the wall for a full minute then subsided.
Tinker turned and peeked over the wall along with everyone else and found the whole ground for over two hundred feet was a fire pit and orcs were running around trying to escape it but were having a hard time breathing and were dropping after running no more than twenty feet. Either from burning to death or due to no breathable air could be found or because the dwarves were shooting them dead. Tinker looked over the burning battle ground but couldn’t see anyone standing so far back on the other side of the burning grounds.
Once all the orcs and their lizard pets had died, either by the fire or by the crossbows of the dwarves. Tinker caused a reverse air blast to pull all the air away from the ground fires and smothered the fires out and once that was done he used his mental magic to scrape the whole two hundred feet of magic converted crushed shale stones into piles, then said. “Garain, you might want to get some of your men to barrel up those piles of smelly crushed rocks and test them out in your forges and other such burning places with good air vents. Just make sure they are stored up here in a clear open air area until you’ve had some of your crafter’s examine it?” Garain looked out at all the dead burnt orcs, lizard beast and nodded his head ok.
Tinker was making his way back down from the top of the wall when his grandfather asked. “Tinker, what spell was that you just used to cause the ground to burst into fire?” Tinker looked over his shoulder and then back at the stairs to make sure he didn’t trip and replied. “This spell I used was an earth based one, it compressed the mountain's ground rocks to squeeze the trapped oils within the rocks out, then to make that oil very flammable.” His grandfather stopped with his head tilted then asked. “Tinker, just where did you learn such a thing?”
Tinker now back down on the ground replied with a wry expression. “Oh, from a gnome book on something called engineering I think it was called. It was when I was traveling from the dwarf capital city here in these mountains to the elven and dwarfs' new trade border station. The gnomes caravan had been attacked by a death ritualist raiding party and I had helped Hendle heal their wounded. Anyway, it was in one of the books he had for sale and I had thought if I ever got the chance, I’d try to magic the process. Why?” Mage Splinterton just shook his head a little in awe at his grandson. He had thought he had long ago learned almost everything doing with the magic arts.
Until his grandson here almost at every turn shows him he had just learned all the basics of it. Hendle, Garain and Janacey came up to them and started to pat Tinker on his back and thanking him for his help clearing out the unwelcomed orcs. Garain was just about to say something when multiple large shadows passed over them. Tinker looked up and had to blink his eyes a few times as he saw four large beasts shadows in the smoke from the still burning fires. At first he thought it was from his newest guardian Bal, but as his eyes adjusted to the overly bright sky above them as the smoke from the still burning buildings was lessened by the breezes being made by the four shadow beasts' wing flappings as they came to land upon the surrounding stone buildings.
There before him perched upon the surrounding buildings were four large lion bodies with hawk heads, wings and claw feet. They had their heads tilted looking down upon them as Garain looked up at them and said. “Greetings, what brings you to our town griffons. If you came to check on what we were burning. It wasn’t us, but an orcs army that started the ruckus, but we finished it. Well, we and our friends did.” Garain patted Tinkers shoulder as he added that last. The smallest of the four turned its head so as to be able to study Tinker better, said in a surprisingly motherly tone of voice. “We had heard of two humans flying into our ranges and also of an orc army traveling around in the mountains and came to warn you of the orcs and to inspect the skies for the reported two who flew near our ranges.” The other three were now inspecting Tinker and his grandfather. As the smallest again said. “Oh? So which one of these two is the great one?” Dan chose that moment to step out of the building's shadows and stood by Tinker's side looking up at the, well if Tinker had to guess, female griffon.
All four bowed toward Tinker which was an amazing thing to watch as they had folded their wings along their bodies and while bending one front leg backwards they lowered their heads. Tinker caught himself and returned the bow and said. “Hmm, thank you for the honor, but you really don’t need to do that. A simple hello or greetings works for me. Are you and the other griffons finding the new elven southern castlefort and its aerie to your liking?” They all stood at Tinkers thanking them for their bows. The griffon on the left of the female griffon replied. “Oh, yes we found that very much to our liking. My name is Tothar, and I must say the elves have out done themselves on that fortress’s creation..”
Tothar stopped speaking and had his head tilted in a shocked expression-like way. Then quickly turned to look at the shadow forest wolf then back at Tinker a couple of times which caused all four to bow again toward Tinker who, like his grandfather was looking between them and Dan the wolf. Tinker sighed then said. “Hmm, ahh. None of us know what is being said down here. So, ahhh, I’m glad you and your people have found them to your liking. While you're here could you take a message back to your ruler?” The female griffon was the first to return to standing replying. “Yes, I carry your message, great one. What is it?” Tinker clears his throat then says. “You may find this hard to believe but the dragons haven’t really left the world as it seems. If you encounter one. Talk before you attack it. They have sworn an oath to not attack peaceful folks. But they will defend themselves and their homes and property. So if you would pass that on to your ruler so they can decide on if they need to pass that on to your people or not, I’m not sure if you and the dragons have any issues or not. I’m just relaying facts as I have knowledge of them in hopes of saving lives.”
The small griffon bowed again and as she ready to retake flight replied. “We and the dragons of old have had our differences and some that could have been avoided if we had taken the time to talk, but that was long before my hatching. I will see that my father hears of this, safe travels Great One until we meet again.” And then she and the other three jumped up and with a few strong wing beats flew off into the skies. Garain cleared his throat and asked. “Ahh, just when were you planning to tell us this bit of news Tinker?” The other dwarfs were nodding their heads in agreement. Tinker looked over at Garain and replied. “Why today of course. But what with all the wounded that needed healing and then the routing of the orcs…Well, I just hadn’t gotten to it. But I did tell you at the same time I told those griffons. I kinda figured it would be better to tell your brother over a good meal than to just walk up and tell him such a thing. I remember reading that you dwarves have always had a dislike it seems with dragons or at least that is what I read and got from all the history books back in the library at the castle in Diamondedge anyway.”
Janacey and Hendle chuckled at that last. Even Garain was chuckling but said as he waved the two humans to follow him. “Aye, we have had our differences with a dragon or two in our past as well. But mostly it was about who was able to hold their ale while they fought the longest and such.” Tinker's grandfather had an inquiring look on his face and asked as they entered the town's gated tunnel into the mountain. “And just what was the sign of who lost?” Hendle replied. “Why whoever spewed their ale first was the loser.” Tinker and his grandfather replied almost as one. “Of course.” and then looked at each other and smirked and joined in with the dwarves chuckling as they walked further down the tunnel's ramp way.
They had been walking for about an hour when Tinker's grandfather slowed down and stared at a cavern the size of a farm field that was growing crops as if it was out in the open valley they had just left. Garain had turned to ask something and noticed that the older mage had stopped and was looking at the hydro farm they had built. Tinker also noticed, but chose to let Garain answer his grandfather's questions.
The young woman now able to move and think without that ritual mark upon her says. “I swear to follow your oath for the rest of my days.” Just as Tinker's grandfather steps out of one of the buildings with a chest floating along behind him all can hear the deep gong sound that seems to come from the now glowing young woman and Tinker walks over and touches her shoulder and breaks the ritual that had been placed and attached to her magical core. Once Tinker has seen that he has succeeded he steps away and the young woman becomes a large silver dragon. She looks at herself and then leans over and brushes a kiss upon Tinker's head with her dragon lips then jumps up into the skies roaring in joy and flys off. As Tinker is watching the Silver Dragon fly off his grandfather says. “Did I just see you transform a poor young woman into a silver dragon?” Tinker calls Dan over and after asking would he rather run on the ground chasing them or take a short trip flying away from here. If the shadow forest wolf's body language had any say in it, it would rather run. But Dan walked over and sat before him with his eyes closed tight and Tinker took it as an agreement and placed a float spell on them both and at the nod from his grandfather they cast their air blasts spell once to get up high and a seconded time to out and were up and gone.
They had managed to fly away with no issues until a gust of wind hit them and forced them to turn and head westerly. At first mage Bufford Splinterton thought someone or actually a group of someones were trying to force them away from going east. But neither he nor Tinker could sense magic in the strong winds. But as the two flew and the winds assisted them to fly faster Tinker recognized the area below them as the one he first met Garain Stonefoot and his dwarven caravan at.
Tinker looked closely at the grounds below them but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he turned his sight to see what was ahead of them, which was mountains. At first Tinker didn’t think much of it outside, he hoped they landed near some small village as he didn’t think he had enough travel food for them to have a full stomach tonight or tomorrow morning. As they flew on, Tinker could see they wouldn’t make it over the mountain ridges that were coming up unless they climbed higher again as they had managed to only have floated down to a few feet above the tree top level. So he waved at his grandfather and once he was looking over at him he used the mental magic and said. “Grandfather, we are going to need to climb high to get over those cliffs ahead of us. I have been watching the grounds below us and haven’t seen any places that would be good to land and camp at, also I don’t think I have enough travel food for us to all have a full stomach tonight.” His grandfather just nodded his head and released another upward air blast which Tinker followed right behind him.
They managed to pass over the cliff tops and found they were flying over a high somewhat forested and farmed valley as they were losing height flying along Tinker saw what looked like an orc raiding army attacking a stone walled town that was being defended by dwarfs. There were a few fires about the edges of the inside walls but it didn’t look like anything major was burning away. As they drew closer, Tinker saw they had been noticed as a few dwarves had lifted their crossbows and pointed them at them. Tinker said. “Grandfather, do you know how to interact with the dwarves?” For his answer his grandfather lifted his hands out to his sides open palm toward the ones that were pointing their crossbows at them. The both of them held that pose as they floated down into the dwarf town and its defenders with their crossbows. Just as they reached the town's roof tops they could hear a bellow of “What in the bones of the mountains are you doing floating about up there Mage Tinker? Please don’t tell me Dem pointy ears have gone an grown on ye as so you can’t be getting enough of the high open air?”
Tinker looked down and started to laugh as he spotted Hendle Stonefoot waiting for them to float on down. Hendle had waved the others to lower their bows by the time they floated down onto the town street. Once they were on the ground Tinker released Dan who laid out on the ground and looked like he was licking it. Hendle was looking at the wolf and Tinker said. “Hendle my friend allow me to introduce Dan, my fey shadow forest wolf guardian. And my grandfather mage Bufford Splinterton. We have been sent here it seems by a stiff wind, to aid you it seems. How long have they been at your front gates here?” Hendle nodded his head at the wolf and offered his hand to shake with his grandfather in greeting and replied. “Oh two days ago, we sent for reinforcements but it seems we have split ourselves a might lean in our reserves of late. What with those hydro farms of yours working so well many of our fighting men have gone and turned to working them.”
Chapter 5
His grandfather tilted his head when he heard the dwarf say something about a hydro farm of his grandsons? Just then a fireball flew over the wall and was headed toward a building not made of stone. Tinker placed an air blast in front of it and blew it back over the wall into the mix of orcs and their lizard dogs that were rushing the town's walls. “I take it you’re here to heal the ones injured? Need any help?” Hendel chuckled and said. “From you? Always. Come on lads, let's get to the worst hurt or we are going to miss out on all the fun.”
So Hendle led them along with the other dwarfs to a medical station that had been cleared of unneeded things like chairs and such so they could lay the badly injured out on the floor in need of healing.When Hendle led Tinker and his grandfather in only one or two of the healers had started to protest until Hendle pulled Tinker over to the worst hurt dwarf in the place and Tinker went to work on healing him. He had no sooner finished with that one than another was brought before him. It seemed like a day had passed before he had no more dwarfs in need of healing. Tinker sank down and was looking for his water flask when someone handed him a tankard of ale.
Tinker said thanks and took a long swallow then sighed and found Janacey standing beside him smiling down at him. Tinker took another swallow and then said. “Janacey, Hello. I hope you haven’t been hurting your knuckles on any of them hard headed dwarves.” Janacey just chuckled and replied. “Naaa, I left Garain to do all that. I just scout the knuckleheads out and lead him to them.” They both chuckle at that, Tinker empties the tankard and looks around for his grandfather and only finds Dan waiting against the wall watching him and everyone that walks in and out. Tinker sighs and asks. “By chance you didn’t see an older fellow human mage here, did you? And which way did he go?” Tinker had a pretty good idea, but wanted to ensure before he moved off to see what he can do to help out against these orcs. Tinker checked himself and found he had only used a quarter of his magic in healing those dwarfs. So when Janacey shook his head no as to seeing his grandfather he handed the tankard back off to Janacey and stood up and headed off toward the town wall with Janacey and Dan following him.
Tinker looked over his shoulder at Janacey and said. “Oh, where's my manners. Janacey, this is Dan, a fey shadow forest wolf, one of three of my guardians. Dan, this is Janacey, a dwarf scout and hunter, also a friend.” The two looked at each other then nodded and continued to follow Tinker followed the sounds of fighting until he reached the outer defense wall and sighed as he looked at all the stairs. Tinker shrugged his shoulders and started climbing them, as he reached the top he found his grandfather tossing lightning bolts and fireballs at the orcs as they advanced with long ladders. Tinker tilted his head and asked. “Hey, can anyone join in the fun here or are only you elders allowed?” His grandfather chuckles and replies. “You're not too old for a good back end spanking, boy.” Just then Garain Stonefoot walked up and said.
“I’ll warn ya now old man, Tinker here is mighty scary when he joins in with that dance of his. His partners have all ended up dead. Just so ya warned and all. Tinker, If you have the strength left after healing all of them that was close to death's door to add to the fun here, why you just go ahead and help yourself to as many as you want, just don’t kill all of them ok? Some of us have just got here.” Tinker chuckled at Garain and turned toward the still advancing forces. He looked at them and then at the grounds they were running over. And smirked as he quickly reworked his defensive wall spell and had it transmute the ground rocks into an oily high burning substance.
He figured the shale rocks that covered the grounds out there transmuted into a high temp burning fuel..like gasoline.. Should give everyone a chance to pick out the dancing burning targets. He rechecked his workings then targeted the largest groups and released his new spell and ducked behind the wall and called out. “Take Cover” And just as everyone ducked and did as he had placing their backs to the stone defense wall a loud whoosh sound could be heard and a wave of hot air ran past the top of the wall for a full minute then subsided.
Tinker turned and peeked over the wall along with everyone else and found the whole ground for over two hundred feet was a fire pit and orcs were running around trying to escape it but were having a hard time breathing and were dropping after running no more than twenty feet. Either from burning to death or due to no breathable air could be found or because the dwarves were shooting them dead. Tinker looked over the burning battle ground but couldn’t see anyone standing so far back on the other side of the burning grounds.
Once all the orcs and their lizard pets had died, either by the fire or by the crossbows of the dwarves. Tinker caused a reverse air blast to pull all the air away from the ground fires and smothered the fires out and once that was done he used his mental magic to scrape the whole two hundred feet of magic converted crushed shale stones into piles, then said. “Garain, you might want to get some of your men to barrel up those piles of smelly crushed rocks and test them out in your forges and other such burning places with good air vents. Just make sure they are stored up here in a clear open air area until you’ve had some of your crafter’s examine it?” Garain looked out at all the dead burnt orcs, lizard beast and nodded his head ok.
Tinker was making his way back down from the top of the wall when his grandfather asked. “Tinker, what spell was that you just used to cause the ground to burst into fire?” Tinker looked over his shoulder and then back at the stairs to make sure he didn’t trip and replied. “This spell I used was an earth based one, it compressed the mountain's ground rocks to squeeze the trapped oils within the rocks out, then to make that oil very flammable.” His grandfather stopped with his head tilted then asked. “Tinker, just where did you learn such a thing?”
Tinker now back down on the ground replied with a wry expression. “Oh, from a gnome book on something called engineering I think it was called. It was when I was traveling from the dwarf capital city here in these mountains to the elven and dwarfs' new trade border station. The gnomes caravan had been attacked by a death ritualist raiding party and I had helped Hendle heal their wounded. Anyway, it was in one of the books he had for sale and I had thought if I ever got the chance, I’d try to magic the process. Why?” Mage Splinterton just shook his head a little in awe at his grandson. He had thought he had long ago learned almost everything doing with the magic arts.
Until his grandson here almost at every turn shows him he had just learned all the basics of it. Hendle, Garain and Janacey came up to them and started to pat Tinker on his back and thanking him for his help clearing out the unwelcomed orcs. Garain was just about to say something when multiple large shadows passed over them. Tinker looked up and had to blink his eyes a few times as he saw four large beasts shadows in the smoke from the still burning fires. At first he thought it was from his newest guardian Bal, but as his eyes adjusted to the overly bright sky above them as the smoke from the still burning buildings was lessened by the breezes being made by the four shadow beasts' wing flappings as they came to land upon the surrounding stone buildings.
There before him perched upon the surrounding buildings were four large lion bodies with hawk heads, wings and claw feet. They had their heads tilted looking down upon them as Garain looked up at them and said. “Greetings, what brings you to our town griffons. If you came to check on what we were burning. It wasn’t us, but an orcs army that started the ruckus, but we finished it. Well, we and our friends did.” Garain patted Tinkers shoulder as he added that last. The smallest of the four turned its head so as to be able to study Tinker better, said in a surprisingly motherly tone of voice. “We had heard of two humans flying into our ranges and also of an orc army traveling around in the mountains and came to warn you of the orcs and to inspect the skies for the reported two who flew near our ranges.” The other three were now inspecting Tinker and his grandfather. As the smallest again said. “Oh? So which one of these two is the great one?” Dan chose that moment to step out of the building's shadows and stood by Tinker's side looking up at the, well if Tinker had to guess, female griffon.
All four bowed toward Tinker which was an amazing thing to watch as they had folded their wings along their bodies and while bending one front leg backwards they lowered their heads. Tinker caught himself and returned the bow and said. “Hmm, thank you for the honor, but you really don’t need to do that. A simple hello or greetings works for me. Are you and the other griffons finding the new elven southern castlefort and its aerie to your liking?” They all stood at Tinkers thanking them for their bows. The griffon on the left of the female griffon replied. “Oh, yes we found that very much to our liking. My name is Tothar, and I must say the elves have out done themselves on that fortress’s creation..”
Tothar stopped speaking and had his head tilted in a shocked expression-like way. Then quickly turned to look at the shadow forest wolf then back at Tinker a couple of times which caused all four to bow again toward Tinker who, like his grandfather was looking between them and Dan the wolf. Tinker sighed then said. “Hmm, ahh. None of us know what is being said down here. So, ahhh, I’m glad you and your people have found them to your liking. While you're here could you take a message back to your ruler?” The female griffon was the first to return to standing replying. “Yes, I carry your message, great one. What is it?” Tinker clears his throat then says. “You may find this hard to believe but the dragons haven’t really left the world as it seems. If you encounter one. Talk before you attack it. They have sworn an oath to not attack peaceful folks. But they will defend themselves and their homes and property. So if you would pass that on to your ruler so they can decide on if they need to pass that on to your people or not, I’m not sure if you and the dragons have any issues or not. I’m just relaying facts as I have knowledge of them in hopes of saving lives.”
The small griffon bowed again and as she ready to retake flight replied. “We and the dragons of old have had our differences and some that could have been avoided if we had taken the time to talk, but that was long before my hatching. I will see that my father hears of this, safe travels Great One until we meet again.” And then she and the other three jumped up and with a few strong wing beats flew off into the skies. Garain cleared his throat and asked. “Ahh, just when were you planning to tell us this bit of news Tinker?” The other dwarfs were nodding their heads in agreement. Tinker looked over at Garain and replied. “Why today of course. But what with all the wounded that needed healing and then the routing of the orcs…Well, I just hadn’t gotten to it. But I did tell you at the same time I told those griffons. I kinda figured it would be better to tell your brother over a good meal than to just walk up and tell him such a thing. I remember reading that you dwarves have always had a dislike it seems with dragons or at least that is what I read and got from all the history books back in the library at the castle in Diamondedge anyway.”
Janacey and Hendle chuckled at that last. Even Garain was chuckling but said as he waved the two humans to follow him. “Aye, we have had our differences with a dragon or two in our past as well. But mostly it was about who was able to hold their ale while they fought the longest and such.” Tinker's grandfather had an inquiring look on his face and asked as they entered the town's gated tunnel into the mountain. “And just what was the sign of who lost?” Hendle replied. “Why whoever spewed their ale first was the loser.” Tinker and his grandfather replied almost as one. “Of course.” and then looked at each other and smirked and joined in with the dwarves chuckling as they walked further down the tunnel's ramp way.
They had been walking for about an hour when Tinker's grandfather slowed down and stared at a cavern the size of a farm field that was growing crops as if it was out in the open valley they had just left. Garain had turned to ask something and noticed that the older mage had stopped and was looking at the hydro farm they had built. Tinker also noticed, but chose to let Garain answer his grandfather's questions.
