The Lord of Arra (1/6)
After Haalfrin gets back to their room, the place is completely empty. His companions must still be out there, dispersing the youngsters and helping them escape.
So, Haalfrin sits down cross-legged and tries Comprehending his Syl Name again. He felt like he was on the edge of something earlier, but he couldn't quite grasp it. He'd like to fix that issue and properly become a 6th Gate mage tonight.
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Meanwhile, we get a quick glimpse of the Felkin girl sitting in her barrel.
She first wonders why it was a good idea for her and her siblings to all separate. After all, when she told Haalfrin that she wanted to be turned into ashes with her sister and mailed away, the human had warned her that it wasn't a good idea. This was certainly a puzzling thing to say.
'Ah!' she realizes, 'It's obviously the mentality of "don't put all your eggs in one basket."'
She then thinks of the supplies that Haalfrin gave her. She opens up the box… only to feel some clothes inside with some snacks wrapped up in the middle…
The little pheonix stealthily munches on the snacks and prepares for a long journey.
After the snacks are eaten, the Felkin girl feels the clothes Haalfrin had given her in the box. "Why... do they feel like soft dresses?"
She thought she'd get something practical like leggings to change into. Hmm...
Ah! There must be some sort of disguise she'll take later on! How exciting!
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We then see Lord Fheldin stir awake under the grey sky with his sons sprawled around him in the canyon. Draped over him is his wife, curled up in a ball and completely covered in blankets.
Dragons have an insanely high body temperature, and a human girl would've burnt to death from hugging a 5-horned dragon (even in his human form) for a whole night. However, Phoenixes happen to feel more comfortable the hotter it is.
Fheldin normally doesn't wake up this early in the morning, but an alarm just went off by one of the servants, and he's telepathically told that they found some of the servants' bodies knocked out in the east wing.
The dragon instantly shoots awake and thinks, 'No way... did that human actually do it? Did he just kidnap one of my daughters?'
Despite dutifully explaining the dragon's marriage ritual to the human, and despite actually liking the human, that doesn't mean this is a happy occasion!
What if Haalfrin is actually a bad person? What if someone more sinister is coincidentally trying to kidnap his children tonight?
Anger and worry well up in the dragon's chest, and his body flares hot like a furnace receiving a breath from the billows.
His wife stirs awake at this, and she groans groggily, "Where are you going?"
"I think some of the children ran away again," he says as he delicately sets her aside and wraps her in even more blankets. Her body should be sweltering hot - just the way she likes it.
Hearing this, Arla just rolls over like a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, and she mutters, "Ok honey. Try to keep things down while you look for them this time." She then goes back to sleep without a care in the world.
The dragon lord decides to keep on his humanoid form to navigate the halls easier, and he shoots over to the east wing at supersonic speeds.
(...Besides, his true, dragon form is much larger than all of his children think, and he actually can't fit in his own halls.)
Of course, Fheldin notices that all of the guest Clans are already gone from his palace – evidenced by the missing carriages. Most of these Rehkin Clans are filled with members who are built with animal instincts, so they're especially nervous to be camping out in a dragon's lair.
Obviously, once the meeting was officially over, most of them woke up extra early and left.
Just to be sure Haalfrin isn't behind his children's disappearance, Fheldin runs over to where he knows the humans are staying… and he finds them all still waiting in their rooms, casually packing their things and wiping their tired eyes.
Fheldin assumes they're so tired because they're not used to waking up so early, like himself. But, in reality, they've been up all night.
Still, seeing that these humans haven't left yet, Fheldin's heart relaxes a little, before it clenches up again upon remembering that his children are still missing.
Just to be extra sure that the humans aren't behind this, Fheldin orders them all to be detained in the dungeon – the most comfortable room there, but still imprisoned, nonetheless.
Once this is out of the way, Fheldin runs over to the children's quarters… and he sees a lone daughter remaining.
The young woman has a bored look in her eyes as she's writing in her journal and recording the results of her latest experiment. All around her are various herbs, ores, and alchemic equipment.
The young Felkin doesn't bother to look at her father when he barges into her room. She says disinterestedly, "Yeah. They all left a few hours ago. Good luck, Dad."
"Marri!" Fheldin asks urgently, "where are they?"
"I said good luck."
"... Oh thanks." He turns around and left in a hurry. He got what he came here for anyway – the beginning of the scent trail!
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The children's scent is thick, and Lord Fheldin follows the trail laughably easily.
After exiting the east wing, all his children's trails split up into three distinct paths. He looks up smelled that the majority of the youngsters went through the air vents, and another half went down through the sewage shaft beneath his feet. Only a few went down the main hall.
'Hmm…,' he thinks, 'I know that the air vent shafts run along the ceiling of my entire palace. The air vents are also purposefully designed to snake and wind in unintuitive ways…'
That, coupled with how huge his palace is and how cramped the vents are… 'That means my children are likely still in there!' he exclaims excitedly. 'Easy win.'
Lord Fheldin extends one hand and forms a protective barrier 10 or so feet off the ground, in order to protect his collectibles lining the halls. He then uses his other hand and...
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Meanwhile, more than a dozen youngsters are, indeed, still struggling to get out of the last shaft.
They had spent several hours trying to get out of this air vent network because after the last child escaped through the vents some 2,000 years ago, their father had redesigned the whole vent system to be more like a maze.
What makes the air vents even worse is that there are spatial enchantments. With these in place, there are small bends in space to make some dead ends become the path forward, and some obvious paths to be dead ends.
The only reason they find their way out at all is because one of the Felkin sisters had the idea to make a small flame and follow the air flow out.
Several hours had passed, and some of the boys who are particularly sensitive to Drakin power shouted out in a panic, "Father's awake and he's angry. Move, MOVE!"
"I see the exit!" the Dragon in front shouts in glee. "We're almost out!"
(Coincidentally, the dragon in front of the long train of children in the vents happens to be the same young man who was sitting next to Faylin as the dragon child read his picture book… but that's "irrelevant".)
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There is a peaceful, green forest where the birds chirp, and other such mundane forest noises hum across the land. The forest abruptly ends when it meets a sheer, brown cliff. Up on the cliff, about 30 feet off the ground, is a conspicuous metal grate covering a square opening where one of the palace vents pulls in clean, forest air.
Suddenly, a loud bang booms in the forest as we see the metal grate bend out of shape and fly off its hinges. The grate slams into a tree – sending a flock of birds scattering into the sky, and the metal bolts holding the grate in place shoot off into the forest like little darts whizzing through the air.
…And we see a boy's scaley foot sticking out of the hole.
Before the dragon in front can right himself, his brothers behind him get impatient and yell, "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!"
Just as abruptly as the dragon kicked the grate out, he's shoved out of the hole by his brothers behind him.
Before the rest of the Drakin and Felkin can tumble out of the hole after him, the falling dragon grins sinisterly and flips around in midair. With a wicked look in his eyes, he flicks his hand and closes the vent exit by remolding the cliff face - trapping all his brothers and sisters in the airducts.
He may not be the strongest of his brothers here, but he's far from being the weakest. He has enough Dravar in him to command the Elementals in this makeshift barrier to be so hard that the others can't break through easily.
Even as he hits the ground and scrambles to his feet, this young man feels malevolent glee as he hears the frantic pounding on the barrier and the livid screams calling his name.
"Fhulk!!!!! YOU TRAITOR!!!!!"
"Geh heh heh!" Fhulk screams back at them as he takes off into the forest. "You can all stay behind and continue sucking your thumbs. I'm going off and becoming an adult today!"
Fhulk nearly cries from joy as he thinks about the beautiful, red haired human he met earlier. Now that he's an adult now, that means he's cool enough for her to like him, right?
'No, no,' Fhulk scolds himself, 'I have to get far enough away from dad's house first – far enough away for him to give up on catching me again.'
Not even moments after Fhulk starts running into the forest, the trapped Felkin and Drakin youngsters scream in fear as the entire floor collapses beneath them, and they all tumble down into the great hall beneath them.
Before they hit the ground, they feel their father's overbearing Dravar coating the entire palace like a net, and it catches them in mid-air.
The children don't even have a chance to even think about how to escape this before they shudder and feel the temperature rise. Something powerful… and angry… is coming…