Super Dragon Carnival!

Super Dragon Carnival, was a universal holiday around the world commemorated for the lack of existence and power of the dragons after the Dark Age. 

In the Golden Age, the one we live in currently, it's made to bring awareness to the event and essentially encourage dragonlike people. 

Well, if there was any on Aurea Islands anyways.

Vaniti and I went down the streets of Royalia. It really was a festival and a carnival, people dressed up for the occasion in the many races of dragons.

Vaniti even wore a dragon mask, one given to her for free by a stall vendor. She got it by stately blinking back, and got it. Sometimes she doesn't realize how intimidating she can be.

I sighed, and looked towards her.

"Never knew this holiday was this big."

She tilted her head, "Really? I used to celebrate this all the time back at the Ranger corps."

"Oh, really? How long ago was that?"

Vaniti takes some time to think, then counts on her fingers. Providing me with an answer.

"47…years ago."

I almost coughed on my spit. 

I'm…going to pretend like I didn't hear that.

Spirit Elves naturally have a higher life expectancy and age range, but the thing is that Vaniti looks nowhere close to one over half a century old. 

I wouldn't even say she's that much older than me. 

And then again…I never really asked her for her age. I just made her tag along for the premise of building her abilities out myself.

But even as I look at her, she seems to be cheerful. Having fun. Maybe it's because I'm here.

And to be fair, I don't think I would want to have it any other way.

We walked down the streets. Stalls on both sides. Many people walking out and about. The late afternoon sunset sky was just setting in. 

Orange lanterns already raised in the air and floating about. Musical instruments being played, I think I even heard the ukelele. Through it all, the spirits were high. The mood was high. Even if…there was just a terrorist attack literally yesterday.

"C'mon! Step right up!" The sound of a vendor called out to us, many people passed that stall, but upon further inspection, it looked no more than just a simple carnival game.

I walked there, Vaniti followed suit.

There, the man smiled, and before him were what seemed to be balloons.

"Step right up! Test your accuracy and precision!" He repeated. Already handing me darts. My tail collected theme as he then spread out his arms.

"Hit the balloons, gain a prize! Ranging from currency, to mana-filled artifacts! The prizes are endless!"

Mana-filled artifacts? Attuned armor maybe? I see…while I could sense it and try to pick out right, all it really does tell me is if the mana is there.

And it is, even with a quick sense, but it doesn't tell me what it exactly is.

I turn to Vaniti, who, with the blindfold on, is already looking ahead. Her face is neutral, but I could already tell she sees it. Exactly.

Then, I grabbed her hand and opened up her palm. My tail placed three of the darts into her hand. She looked at me confused, I only smiled.

"Go ahead, have a try."

She looked at me, puzzled, then at the vendor clerk. She motioned for me to bend down just slightly, and I did. My pointed ears twitched as she put a hand over her mouth, and whispered in a hushed tone.

"...which one should I get?"

Huh?! What do you mean which one should you get? Is your Spirit Eye really telling you the exact difference in all of the items?

I hid my shock and embarrassment with a cough, and then responded.

"U-uh…whichever one really, makes no difference to me."

"Hmph. Got it."

Sounding almost triumphant, we broke away and she stood in front. At the selected range, it was pretty far. Almost 4 feet away. Any regular ranged mage would even have a problem, concerning wind speed, the weight of the dart, the exact angle and power it needs to be thrown at—

Vaniti simply threw her arm forward, and in succession, three balloons popped in a row.

The vendor looked at the popped balloons, then back at us.

She smiled softly, and brought her fist down in victory. I only stared at her in shock.

"Wh-what…?!"

Both the vendor and I shared the exact same expression. The way Vaniti did it, so carelessly and effortlessly. Not even taking the time to do one at a time—no, she threw all three darts in one motion!

Looking defeated, he bagged up all three of the items that fell from the balloon. My tail threw an extra dart just to see if I could snag one more, but it missed just by an inch. Maybe I would've hit had I used my arm instead.

"...as promised, here you go." He sounded dejected, his tone low. Hopefully we didn't take away a few of the most prized items. And by we, I mean she. Vaniti. I don't think she would understand the value of each magical item, though.

He handed us the bag, and Vaniti stared blankly at him. He hesitated to give it to us, but my arm swiped it anyways.

"Thanks for playing. Please don't ever come back again."

Yeah, yeah. I pushed Vaniti along with my tail and walked away. His gaze was starting to get a little uncomfortable.

When I considered that we were far enough, I opened up the bag. Dug in there with my hand, and fished out a necklace.

"W-woah!" I held the necklace within my hand, the blue sapphire gem attached to it shined, pulsed greatly with mana brimming from it.

So much for a game, this only fulfilled my suspicion even more. Considering Dragon Tale's: UItimate had extensive DLC and Expansions, I wondered how the world treated such. It's nice to know that it still exists.

This is an artifact from the fourth expansion of the game, Icelands, where it gave us a new region, new classes, new dragons…the Ice Serpent dragon that I mentioned from time to time, and new artifacts plus weapons.

The artifact alone only could've came from the Icelands, which means that Aurea Islands must have some form of import and export trade economy going on. To think an item like this traveled halfway across the world…

…which also explains on how Sultan was so adamant on pointing out on how he fixed the economy and established good relations with other nations.

He didn't, that's the thing. Aurea Islands had no choice but to heavily import and export.

I wore the necklace, in game, it would further enchant your magic in a variety of different buffs and effects. Looks like this one, just by the look of it, increased my mana generation rate. Pfft, as if I needed that.

But Vaniti won it for me, so I'll wear it. Think of it as a gift. Could've been a godroll, but this would do.