Intruders

A dark figure dashed through the forest and muttered to a black orb, "Are you sure it's this way? I don't see or feel anything yet."

A voice came out of the black orb and said, "Yes, I am certain. I spent years tracking this guy down. This is the last area that matches the bill. This is a dragon we're talking about, of course, you wouldn't be able to see his base, his magic far surpasses our own."

"Man, I wonder what a dragon base would look like."

"Shhh! You're getting closer."

"It's fine. This orb should hide me perfectly, my voice wouldn't give me away."

"Still. It's better to be safe than sorry, Jalila."

"Geez. You're such a worry-wart."

"When the orb cuts a hole in the barrier for you to enter, the power that is concealing you would weaken for a bit and just that much is enough to reveal you. And by the time you realize that you broke through the barrier, you would just then notice that you broke through and would already be within his grasp. You wouldn't matter but that orb cost boss millions. We better do this job right or he'll kill us if the dragon doesn't first. Just be quiet and hide your own mana when you break through, leave a Breadcrumb, and get out."

Breadcrumb is a magical tool made in Zorbia used as a marker/tracker.

"Why do you call him boss? Malt is just hiring us to track this dragon guy and it's all for what? This man wants to mess with a dragon living in the forest. He would be lucky if the dragon doesn't burn down his entire county and kill all of his descendants."

"It's fine. We're getting paid a lot for this and that's all that matters. Just find the dragon and we'll be rich for the rest of our lives."

Finally, after several minutes of running, the orb shook and Jalila heard a ripping sound, signifying that she had successfully ripped through the barrier.

She got through. Rather, she thought she got through with the orb. In reality, Afir had just weakened that area to allow her to see who it was that was looking for him.

'fool. A weak tool like that could never break through my barriers.'

She closed all communications from the orb, wrapped it up further with her black robe, and activated the 30-second telepathy feature, a special property of the artifact. It allows one-way telepathy from the holder of the orb to the orb station for 30 seconds. A sort of case for the orb, the second half of it.

'Oh, shit! I think I broke through. This orb is amazing! It allows me to use telepathy without using any magic circles or any of my own mana. Wait. Why is there a wood cabin here? Alan, am I in the wrong area? No, that can't be. But how is a dragon able to build something as detailed as this? And why would they even do that? Who lives he-- AAAAAGHHHH!' On the other side of the orb. Orb station, in a dark cave:

A man stands there in front of a hovering cube about a foot wide on every edge. It had smooth, rounded edges and it was opened in the middle, like a ring box. Inside, it was all empty and black, except a small white screen in the middle showing sound waves and captions. The captions said, "But how is a dragon able to build something as detailed as this? And why would they? Dragons don't have a need for anything like this nor should they be able to build it unless they were a sage dragon.'' And new words keep flowing in like the waves on the screen spiked up and down. All of a sudden, as he was reading the words and listening to Jalila's thoughts from a headphone, a scream resounded about in his eardrums. He winced and quickly grabbed the headphones off. Angrily, he thought, "I am going to murder her if that was just for fun. How is a telepathic scream so loud?"But all Jalila was thinking was, 'Oh wait. I don't think he sees me. There is a man standing over there. He has long silver hair and is only wearing a single animal cloth on his crotch. But his back is turned to me so I think I'm safe.

Alright, I'm just going to leave this Breadcrumb here and leave, sir.'

'... why the hell is she trying to talk to him...telepathically? And wasn't this supposed to be a dragon? Was he wrong? Wait, none of this is making any sense. I'm sure the boss wasn't wrong. But why would a dragon...oh, no! '

The sudden realization had just hit him.

'This guy IS a Sage Dragon!! Sh*t, I gotta get Jalila outta there! Damn, there's still five more seconds on the one-way telepathy. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. I knew it, the bastard lied to us, I knew that rat couldn't be trustworthy!'

'Alright, let's dash.'

"Jalila, get out! I think that's a sage dragon!"

"W-what? That's not what… the douche lied to us. That's why it was such a nice pay and that's why he was so cautious. Damn it, we were fooled!"

Over on Afir's perspective.

The dark figure hiding in the shadows glanced over at Afir's back one last time and dashed away at an incredible speed. He kept on tracking it as it dashed out of the forest and straight into a hole dug into a nearby mountain hidden with rocks and trees.

He watched all of this from the even tinier Afir clone eye that he planted under her chin. One of the few parts she wouldn't be able to see.

"Zeeth, it's safe to come out now. It wasn't anything dangerous, I'm sure it was some sort of recon, to scope the area out and find where I live. I think I know who's behind this."

As he walked out the door Zeeth asked, "Who? Why do you think they targeted you and who in their right minds would? You're a Sage Dragon."

"Sit down, kid. This is going to be a long one." Zeeth sat down on a boulder as Afir moved around collecting some things. "Well, many many years ago, before I lived in this forest by myself, which is amazing by the way, I really recommend it, I lived in the city. I started off fighting for the kingdom. Before the Dragon Apocalypse, dragons were well-respected creatures. Not often feared, we showed dignity and restraint in our powers. Sage Dragons who had reached an even higher realm in intelligence and strength were even more revered.

Unfortunately, after the incident, many biases and new thoughts formed. BUT, before those times, I fought at the front lines like a crazed animal. I swung my blade around with no regard to my life or anyone else's, often with some serious consequences. I never stuck with one group for long and was often ostracized or even despised by many. I felt lonely, but I kept telling myself to fight because being in the heat of battle, surrounded by enemies, and in a dire situation where I had to think and act completely out of the box and in totally unorthodox ways on my feet distracted me from my actual problems.

Just being in battle made me happy. It made me feel strong and better than everyone else for a short while. And of course, most importantly it distracted me from my loneliness.

One time, I made a serious mistake. I was in another war, young and dumb… huh. That's a good saying. It rhymed. Anyways, my head was in the wrong space and I accidentally gravely injured my teammates. This happened before, but not to this extent. His right arm was severed and he went blind in the right eye. And what's even worse, this one was the son of Dissop Vonnear, a very politically powerful man in the kingdom. With a few words and favors, he got me expelled from wars. Which meant, I had nothing to distract me and I was forced to live in the city where I was constantly reminded of how I'm the only person with no one to call friends or family.

I was livid, I was so mad at the Vonnears for ruining my life and doing all of this for some small accident. I mean, the guy didn't even die! And I was mad at myself. If only I hadn't hurt that dumbass or if only I hadn't been near him in that war.

Anyways. Living in the city for such a long time for the first time got me rather miserable. I drank all day and got into a lot of fights. There was a man called Doh that I met. Well, I smashed a chair over his head and he dunked mine in a barrel of water. Through some very strange events, we became friends. We don't talk any more now that I'm in here but up until the last minute before I left, we were inseparable. In fact, he was the one who got me out of my misery pit just as I did for him. You see, we were both suspended from our usual activities, him from competing for control in the Sonagh family and me from war.

He says that for as long as he could remember he's been taught to try and obtain as much political power as possible. Try to be a part of the house as much as possible and try to get more respect from the people so this suspension from the family halted all of his plans and pushed back his schedule by a lot. He was losing precious time and was feeling miserable and drinking it away in a bar just like me.

He was suspended for being too violent because he one time... actually, I'll tell you the story in the future. Anyways, he helped me, I helped him. While staying in the city I realized something. Personal strength doesn't mean squat here. With so many people in the city, if you were to act out, the military would come and put you down instantly. Political strength is everything. As an individual, you can be overwhelmed by tons of other people or be taken down by massive weapons. But if everyone favors you and respects you then what is there to fear. People would literally fight for you because of how great they think you are and isn't that what beats all in the end? I realized that as long as you look good to the general people you could do amazingly well in the city. So that's exactly what I went for.