Asking for Death

Haalfrin walks up to the palace gates, and he's surprised nobody came to stop him so far, despite there being valuable herbs all around him that he might steal.

He tries asking Dakka about it, but Dakka's spirit refuses to even speak, for fear of his power fluctuations leaking out, and his identity being discovered.

So, Haalfrin walks up to the front door uncontested, and he looks up at the giant stone gates. Now that he's close to it, he's amazed at how large the entrance is. It must be… thousands of feet high! Even Dakka, in his dragon form, barely reaches a tenth of the distance up!

This is at least SOME indication of how large Lord Fheldin actually is.

Breathing in to calm his excitement, Haalfrin knocks on the door rather loudly with his enhanced strength. Even still, the doors are so thick that he has to put more magic in his arms as he pounds on the door with renewed vigor.

In the end, he has to use his Dra Name with all his strength in order to even hear a knocking boom from the door.

Finally satisfied that people could hear his knocking, he stands back and waits for a few moments before he hears a smaller wooden door squeak open far to his right. He looks over, and he sees an older woman with greyed wolf ears atop her head shuffle into view from around the corner.

"What's your business, stranger?" the woman demands in Draconic with crossed arms and a sour expression.

"I'm here to challenge Lord Fheldin for a fight," Haalfrin answers back in her language.

"…What?" The maid servant is utterly speechless. Who IS this madman?

Seeing the woman not answering back, Haalfrin taps his foot in annoyance and says, "Just go inside and say that Haalfrin is here requesting a duel to the death!"

The old woman rolls her eyes and heads inside.

He has the feeling this will be a long wait, so he sits down and tries to be patient.

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As time passes by, Haalfrin wanders about, and he checks out the area to the right of the gate out of curiosity. Where did that maid come from?

He goes around a patch of trees, and he sees a small wooden door tucked neatly out of the way. On top of the door is a sign that reads in Draconic letters, "Employee Entrance Only."

Haalfrin sighs and thinks, "Well, let's just wait for his answer." So, he heads back and sits down, cross-legged, in front of the main gate.

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Several hours pass by, and Haalfrin finally loses his patience. He goes up to the gate and pounds on it – this time with his full strength behind his blows. The gate shakes and shudders, but it remains undamaged.

However, the gates swing open almost immediately. On the other side of the door is a large, imposing purple dragon with 3 horns. "Who daressss…?" The dragon lowers his head and hisses, "A humannn?"

The dragon then morphs into a muscular, humanoid body before asking, "Have you come to apologize for your friends at the Threshold?"

"Apologize for what?" Haalfrin says irately, "I got nothing to do with them." He points further into the dark recesses of the cavern behind the dragon. "I've come to challenge Lord Fheldin to a duel. Get him for me."

"INSOLENT!" the dragon roars while slapping his tail on the ground with fury. "AS IF FATHER WOULD BE HUMILIATED BY DUELING WITH AN INSECT LIKE YOU!"

The dragon's body explodes with fiery energy as his body expands again. His claws rake into the ground – carefully avoiding the garden – and he lifts his head up high. "IF YOU WANNNT TOOOO FIGHT LORD FHELDINNNN, YOU'LL HAVVVE TOOO GOOO THROUGH MEEEEE FIRSSST!"

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A few moments later, the purple-scaled dragon is on the ground, nursing a broken skull and unable to think straight due to the concussion on his brain. "Uuuuhhh…" he groans pitifully.

Haalfrin is feeling a little miffed at being ignored by these people, so he walks up and slaps the dragon a few more times. "Oi! Lizard! Get up! Go get your father now! I'm here to duel Fheldin, not his children!"

Once the dragon's wits are about him again, he gives one last look at Haalfrin before saying, "I'll go let them know."

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Soon after, the same purple dragon is in a room with all his elder brothers. "Guys!" he exclaims excitedly, "There's a human just outside the gate! He's trying to request a duel with dad!"

"Hmph!" the vocal brown dragon from earlier huffs. "It's just a human. Isn't it too much to let a weak human fight father, as if they were equals?"

"But brother Tefka!" the young, purple dragon protests, "the human beat me up! He was by himself!"

All the other dragons in the room laughs at the injured dragon. One of them puts his hand on the youngster's shoulder and laughs, "Haha! Brother Kel, you're probably just trying to make excuses for getting in an accident or something. Don't worry. We won't look down on you for this. But… you don't have to make the human sound powerful or anything."

Kel crosses his arms and shouts in anger, "Shouldn't we just let father know, and let him decide on how to deal with the human?!"

"Wait…," one of the dragons says while holding up a finger. "What if we use this as an excuse to escape? I mean, we still have to escape in order to go to the Threshold and get revenge on that dragon slayer."

"Oh? Keema?" Tefka says with interest. "We're listening. What's your plan?"

The green dragon (Keema) curls his fist in glee as he explains his plan. "So, you know how nobody can open the front Gate without Father releasing the lock?"

"Yeah…?"

"So," the green one explains while pointing at little Kel, "Father let the gate open earlier because he let one of his children deal with the guest, since he could feel the guest came with the intention to fight."

"Plus," Keema continues, "Father is confident we can't flee as soon as the gates are open, since he'll be there to capture us again."

"Where are you going with this?" one of the younger dragons asks with bubbling excitement. Pulling off an escape attempt is always exciting, though it always fails (hence, why they're still here).

"Let me talk!" Keema growls at his younger siblings while slapping him away with his tail. "Anyway, we can tell father that we'll take the fight up atop the cliffs, outside the range of the no-flight zone. We'll excuse it by saying that we don't want to wreck home, nor the garden with the battle."

Tefka puts his hand on his chin and smiles. "Ah," he says. "I see where this is going. Being outside all the locks and barriers, we'll have the perfect chance to escape." He looks up and says, "That's a good place to start, though there's a lot of kinks to work out in the plan."

All the dragons – both uncles and nephews – huddle together and start carving out their plans on the stone floor…

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Eventually, after they get everything worked out, they all agree on a few simple steps.

Probably the biggest obstacle they have to deal with is how to get Fheldin to NOT come out and supervise them during the "duel". If daddy is there to keep them in line, then there's no point in trying to run away.

But how could they possibly all get outside without him?

Simple. The answer is Fheldin's eldest son, Hraldin. Long ago, Lord Hraldin managed to leave on his own, yet he decided to return out of a desire to serve his father.

Hraldin worships his father, and he looks up to his unmatched power. The man sort of acts like a second in command that helps carry out the Master's will.

This always makes it hard to escape, since Hraldin will help capture his younger siblings and return them. He also helps supervise the place and make sure the others stay in line.

… The great thing about this is that Hraldin isn't nearly as powerful as his father, yet he's also a lot stupider.

They can use this to their advantage…

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The halls of Fheldin's palace are lined with glowing stones of various colors, and the floor is paved with gold. Tefka's brown-scaled feet pitter-patters down the hall nervously as he goes to meet his father.

He spends a moment to gather his confidence before he knocks on the door.

An unimaginably deep voice reverberates through the door, as Lord Fheldin's voice answers back. However, because the master's voice is so deep, his voice is more of an earthy rumble than distinguishable words. If a mountain could have a voice, this is what it would sound like.

"Yes, father, I have some urgent business to talk to you about," Tefka answers his father's voice.

Dragons' ears are actually more suited to hearing with a low frequency anyway, so Tefka can perfectly understand his father's voice. Anyone else (like a human) would've just felt the ground and walls vibrating, and heard the loose dirt skipping on the ground.

"Youuu neverrr commme to visssit meee annnymore…," Fheldin's deep voice trails off. "Come, let me hold youuuu againnn, my chillld."

Tefka rolls his eyes and cringes on the inside. 'Why does father always have to treat us like we're little babies all the time?' he thinks. 'I'm a young man right now! I'm too old to cuddle with people like a thumb-sucking toddler!'

Dragons are prideful by nature, so being taken care of and babied is incredibly infuriating. This is the real reason why nobody likes to visit Father Fheldin.

Tefka still opens the door, and he sees a titanic cavern much larger and deeper than the pit outside the front door. Most of the room is dark, though with a dragon's night vision, he can see that the entire cavern is lined with various alchemy equipment and hordes books – mostly the mistress's belongings.

There, in the center of the cavern, is a great pile of gold mingled with mana stones serving as the Master dragon's bed. In the palm of Fheldin's hand is the (comparatively) minuscule figure of a woman comfortably wrapped in a blanket as she slumbers peacefully. Outstretched behind her are 4 feathery wings arrayed with many colors.

Fheldin's wife is a phoenix, and (according to Lord Fheldin) she's the most beautiful of her kind.

Lord Fheldin has always been deathly afraid of kidnappers taking his wife away – especially since phoenix feathers can restore youth for real - unlike Rehkin blood, which only makes one appear younger. He also knows that a dragon's vigil is at its weakest when they're sleeping.

Thus, Lord Fheldin refuses to ever go to sleep without having his wife tightly in his grip, as he's doing now.

Of course, nobody in this world is stupid enough to kidnap the master's wife. Still, Fheldin is paranoid by nature, and he's convinced some self-proclaimed hero will one day break into his home and attempt to "liberate" the "unfortunate phoenix" from her "oppressor".

Knowing all of this, Tefka ignores his mother sleeping soundly, and Fheldin tries his best not to make a sound as he moves his lumbering neck over to Tefka.

Even with Fheldin's head hovering over Tefka, the 5-horned dragon's head is so large that he completely blots out the light coming from up above. All Tekfa sees is blackness.

"What iss it?" Fheldin asks again.

Feeling the sheer oppression coming from Fheldin (albeit, unconsciously), Tefka gulps and says, "There's a challenger in the front door. He wants to fight you."

Fheldin nods and says, "Hmm… I cannn killlll himmm tommmorrow. My Treasure isss sssleepinnng."

Of course, this isn't the answer Tefka wants, so he steps forward and protests, "But father! He's-"

"LOWER YOUR VOICE!" Fheldin rumbles to his son. Tefka is certainly small enough for his voice to be within the sleeping phoenix's hearing range.

"…But father…, he's just a human. Isn't it beneath someone as great as you to personally go meet a challenger? Humans are cowardly creatures who always run away from us or sneakily steal things from us."

"I don't care if he'sss a human, a rat, or another dragon!" Fheldin grumbles back. "We are Drakin! Drakin are chivalrousss and righteousss! We dooo nnnot humiliate our foesss!"

In Fheldin's mind, ignoring another's challenge or not taking it seriously IS humiliation; this is what he's religiously taught all his descendants, just as his own father taught him.

"I know, father," Tefka quickly says, "but I have a solution! I would like to battle him out in your stead!"

"…Oh?"

"Yes, father Fheldin," Tefka bows his head nervously when meeting his father's gaze, "I've talked with the other brothers, and we all decided that if the challenger can prove he can defeat the weaker dragons, then he'll have the right to challenge you to. That way, you can spend more time with mother."

"Do I have to revivvve annnybody?" Fheldin asks. There's no way his sons could decide who gets to fight the challenger without one of them getting killed or mortally injured during the argument.

Tefka shakes his head. "No. Only a few bones were broken." The young dragon then looks up nervously; this is the dangerous part of their escape plan.

"Father," he adds, "We were also thinking of fighting the challenger on the ridge overlooking mother's garden… Yes, the garden just outside the front door."

Fheldin sets his head down again. "That's fine, then. Jussst tell me what timmme you're goinnng out, and I'll commme sssupervise you – I mean, cheer you onnn."

"That's all right," Tefka smiles and says, "Brother Hraldin offered to watch us. He said he had nothing to do tomorrow, and he wanted to help you out. He's angry about the challenger as well."

"…Fine," Fheldin rumbles before curling his head back again in rest, "but I expect to ssssee you tomorrrrrrrow for dinnnnner."

It should be fine with Hraldin watching him, right? He can't run away with the eldest brother there.