Submitted by Zagreus7777 t3_119yeev in WritingPrompts
RevenantSeraph t1_j9rz6qe wrote
Reply to comment by RevenantSeraph in [WP] As it turns out, this dragon had never killed anyone before, nor did it plan to, it was frightened and acted in self-defence. Now the party will have to figure out what to do with the hyperventilating beast while the cleric revives the murderhobo fighter by Zagreus7777
Dura was closer to the rifle than Richard was, and as he reached it, he found her foot resting on top of it. He tried to pull it out from underneath before he realized what he was looking at, and gaped up at his sergeant, her tall, broad figure suddenly imposing.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "what did you just say?" There was more menace in her quiet tone than there was in her shouts; she didn't have to look to know that Venmys had shuddered a little at the sound. The elf had been on the receiving end of this tone before, and had gone out of their way to avoid it happening again.
"Sarge, lemme have my gun! This dragon is a menace, it has to be our target! It killed me! Why didn't you kill it?!"
Dura sneered down at the human. She'd thought as much; she'd noticed little things since he'd joined. The way he seemed to look down at Venmys, or seemed to treat Conor like he was the one in charge and not Dura. She put the tip of her sword into the trigger guard of the rifle, then lifted her foot and pushed Richard away with her heel. He was still weak from resurrection; there was no chance of him resisting, and he rocked backward, landing on his ass.
"Listen here, Dick," she said. "You being upset about dying? Sure, I can handle that. That's not what's got me pissed off right now. Your open racism is what did it." She knelt down to look into the man's eyes, and gave her lower jaw a little extra jut forward, emphasizing her tusks. "You said the quiet part out loud, you dumb shit. And in a squad led by an orc, no less. Not very smart. I don't know what backwards precinct you came out of, but that shit don't fly in the RIC. Queen don't take kindly to human supremacists - you know, being an elf and all."
Richard looked frightened now, and turned his head to look at the others. Venmys was now looking at him with open disgust, their rifle lowered and slowly discharging back into the storage cells on their armor. Conor had stood up, and was looking at the younger human with stark disapproval. It was Conor that Richard's gaze lingered on, and he said, "You're not gonna just let her talk to me like that, right? Brother?"
Conor sneered as he said, "I ain't your brother, Richard. And she's your Sergeant." He paused, then added, "My wife is Feyblooded - you know, our quartermaster? So don't think your garbage is gonna buy you any points with me."
Richard scrambled to his feet, and stepped backward away from them - then gave a sheepish yelp as he realized he was backing towards the dragon, and stumbled forward, away from her.
Dura laughed. She couldn't help it. "Ven," she said, "get this piece of shit out of my sight. I've got to ask some questions still. We'll deal with this later."
"With pleasure," Venmys said, their alto voice tense with dislike. "Move it, shithead. Outside. Don't test me, or you'll find out how good a knife-ear's reflexes are. Don't think I didn't hear you call me that under your breath the other day..."
Venmys poked Richard with the business end of their rifle, and that was enough to get him to move, walking ahead of them. Which left Dura and Conor to deal with the dragon.
Dura turned back to the dragon, sliding her sword into the holder on her back as she did. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry about this. It's Halcida, right? Are you capable of shapeshifting? If you are, could you please assume a smaller form? It'd be easier to talk to you that way, but I don't mind if you can't."
"No, I...I can," the dragon said, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the shapeshifting power native to most dragons. She began to shrink, taking a human form, her hair and eyes the same vibrant blue as her scales had been. She was reasonably pretty, but most shapeshifted dragons were - as her Captain had put it, with a vain flick of her own silver hair, if you could choose what you looked like, most people would choose to be pretty, wouldn't they?
"I...I was just minding my own business," Halcida said, her voice now quieter and higher pitched, "you know...admiring my treasure? And that...man burst into the cave, and started screaming at me, pointing his weapon at me. I-I panicked, and when he advanced on me, I just...lashed out, I couldn't think of what else to do, I'm so sorry!"
Dura put her hands up, her expression as gentle as her voice. "It's okay. You were defending yourself. I'm not planning to say anything more than that. It's a big world with a lot of different people in it - things happen."
"I'm glad he's okay," Halcida said in a small voice. "Even if he is...you know, a racist...I didn't want to hurt him."
"He'll be fine," Conor said, smiling behind his beard. "A little weak for a day or two, but it's nothing he doesn't deserve for being an idiot. Now, can we ask you some questions about what's been going on around here lately?"
"With the disappearances? I'd...I'd heard about that, I've been keeping an eye out when I go out to stretch my wings." Halcida's expression settled a little, the fear ebbing away into an eager look. "I want to help, I live here now, so I should be a good neighbor, right? That's what Papa always said we should do. And I saw something the other day, a bunch of cars driving along the highway, but...they were weird, they had some kind of shadowy stuff around them. It was hard to see them."
"Can you show us where?" Dura's tone was excited now. Finally, a break.
"Yes, I can! I could fly you there, if you want!"
Dura held up a hand, smiling. "I like your enthusiasm, but one thing at a time. I've got to get my soon-to-be discharged rookie back to the local chapterhouse so he doesn't get killed by my arcanist for looking at them wrong. Is it alright if we come back tomorrow, and you can show us then?"
"That'd be okay. I'm...I'm so, so sorry about all this..." Halcida's expression became anxious. "Can you tell that man I'm sorry? Maybe...maybe he's just afraid of dragons. I don't blame him, I'm a little scared of my older sisters..."
Dura gave Conor a look, then smiled at Halcida. There was no reason to shatter her optimism by telling her racists seldom had good reasons to be hateful. "I'll tell him, sure. We'll see you tomorrow, Miss Halcida. Have a good night."
"You too," the dragon said as Dura turned to leave the cave, Conor following close behind.
After a moment of walking, he asked quietly, "How are we gonna deal with all this?"
"Well, first, we're getting that enormous pile of shit out of my squad," Dura said with an undisguised snarl. "Then, we're gonna track down this shadowy caravan and figure out what they're up to. No more people are gonna vanish from this province on my watch."
Zagreus7777 OP t1_j9s0e6s wrote
Absolutely FANTASTIC work! I haven't seen a story written from a prompt with so much detail! The worldbuilding on it's own, and the story?
chef's kiss
Bravo, my friend! You are an exemplary writer
RevenantSeraph t1_j9s1uea wrote
Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. The world is one I've been writing in for a while, though I hadn't had a chance to touch on the concept of the Royal Inspector's Corps just yet, so thank you for a prompt that inspired me to do so!
Zagreus7777 OP t1_j9tevqo wrote
I'm glad to help!
Kflynn1337 t1_j9sv1ay wrote
DUDE! Ok.. you have to continue this, pretty please?! I mean, this is Sir Terry Pratchett levels of world building! (I'm thinking of Guards!Guards! specifically)
RevenantSeraph t1_j9swyf6 wrote
You honor me! He's one of my inspirations in how I write and build a setting. I may keep going on this later; I have ideas. If I do, it'll be on my personal sub. I can ping you, if you like.
Kflynn1337 t1_j9sx1yg wrote
Yes please!
Aphrel86 t1_j9svybw wrote
I half expected the Seargant to be faking he political correctness and planning to shoot the dragon after shifting to a smaller form xD
RevenantSeraph t1_j9sx4qc wrote
No lie, asking a dragon capable of doing so to shapeshift small is probably standard procedure for exactly that reason - easier to put down before they can cause too much carnage, if that's what it comes to. Just because they're smaller, though, doesn't make them that much weaker...
As for the PCness, though, that's very real. The Witch Queen's conquest of the world all started with her destroying and replacing an elven government bent on race-driven conquest. She doesn't look fondly on racism, and she's...not a nice lady, when she isn't fond of a practice. It only follows that people working for institutions bearing the Royal seal and name would be held to a high standard in that regard. Richard must have hid it very well until that moment.
SlotherakOmega t1_j9t3hhk wrote
Actually, I would think that shrinking the body down would only make the dragon more powerful. Because of the fact that matter can neither be destroyed nor created, only converted into or from energy. Reducing the total mass? Charging and compressing a tightly wound spring, that thing might backhand someone into next year. By accident. Think Ant-Man. Shrinking himself down didn’t make him any weaker, he still had the mass of a full grown man.
Why would a species as proud as a dragon even consider learning how to shrink themselves and put themselves at a disadvantage at the same time?
This also could play into the issue of overall size, dragons come in many different sizes, maybe the shapeshifters are at the maximum possible size to power ratio that keeps them competent. A towering dragon is terrifying… but the question is, can it stand up on its own four (or more or less) limbs? Too big, and it’s a WACKY WAVING ARM FLAILING INFLATABLE TUBE DRAGON, minus the wacky and waving parts. In other words, a ragdoll. The size of a Kaiju. Too tiny, and it literally becomes a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere. Like I said, backhanding someone so hard that they literally travel fast enough to bend time and space and wind up in… sometime next year. I mean logically there would have to be a limit before there was falloff or potential gravitational anomalies, so that could explain larger dragons being more powerful simply because they grew so much that this is their small version.
Or, we could just say it wasn’t in our universe, where these rules apply. That works too I guess.
RevenantSeraph t1_j9t4xeg wrote
It's definitely complex, only made more so by the fact that shape shifting - and for that matter, dragons in general - are magic, and magic doesn't care much for the laws that the non-magical parts of reality operate by. 'It's magic' is absolutely a plausible explanation for just about anything in their universe. Magic makes the impossible possible. Thermodynamics, conservation of mass - these are things that most proper college-educated wizards acknowledge as real while simultaneously violating the shit out of them for party tricks.
Physically, a dragon's strength and speed aren't really diminished by transforming. Halcida could still very much toss Dura's squad around for a bit, until she wound up eating hot magical death from Ven's rifle, or with Dura's sword in her. Their senses aren't diminished either; they still have an aerial predator's visual acuity, and a sense of smell much better than any human, elf, or orc.
The notion of being weaker comes from the other gross physical changes - not having their scales makes them more fragile, not having wings makes them unable to fly without an outside option (a spell or device), and the glands that generate their breath attacks are physically smaller and not capable of generating the same level of raw power behind the attack. They do give things up by transforming, and many will take steps to make up for those losses; some wear armor, or carry a big honkin' weapon, because they feel vulnerable at human scale.
However, they gain other things in exchange. Primarily, hands built for the same scale and level of dexterity the rest of the world operates on. Dragon claws aren't great at manipulating objects built on human scale. They gain the ability to interact with the rest of a very cosmopolitan world on a level that doesn't frighten the average person. Plus, fast cars and jewelry and plush furniture, among other things - the 'treasures' of a modernized world - are easier to really enjoy and make use of when you're not too big for them.
Plus, the dragons of this particular point in the setting are a millennium and a half into the world-spanning rule of a spellcaster who absolutely has the means - personally, politically, militarily, economically - to wreck them if they don't play nice. The ones that didn't choose to do so didn't make it to this era of their world. A dragon the age of Halcida (a mere two hundred years old, equivalent to roughly a 20-year-old human) is a more 'tame' version of the grand, prideful beasts of old. Still powerful, still frightening on a visceral level to smaller creatures, but cognizant of the fact that if they get along they can be movie stars and business tycoons and enjoy wealth and power just like Great-Grandma used to.
Ultimately, transforming has benefits and drawbacks; it's also just respectful when dealing with smaller people that you don't particularly feel like terrifying the piss out of, or if said smaller people can make your life miserable by dint of being an agent of an authority they know they should be wary of.
Sorry I replied a novel at you! I just like engaging with people about my work. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
RealFrog t1_j9u2ejp wrote
> They do give things up by transforming, and many will take steps to make up for those losses; some wear armor, or carry a big honkin' weapon, because they feel vulnerable at human scale.
Pick your poison: a human-shaped dragon carrying an M2 like humans carry AR-15s, or a dragon in their default firebreathing form, with air support if they feel like it. Near enough to BRRRRT for close-in work.
RevenantSeraph t1_j9uefop wrote
Frightening either way.
Now you've got me imagining a GAU-8 designed to be wielded by a full size dragon. Fuck, the equivalent weapon in this world probably references dragons in its name. Either out of reverence, or because it's designed to kill them.
SlotherakOmega t1_j9v6mtb wrote
The DraGAU-9. Because when it comes down to damage control, what better than a dragon with a gun? Long range, medium range, close range, right on top of you, nowhere is safe. Order now!
Oak_wood_fan t1_j9t0i31 wrote
Holy shit. This is soo good!
Zagreus7777 OP t1_j9wzq7k wrote
Ah shoot- almost forgot! You've earned yourself a follow!
_i_am_a_dragon_ t1_ja3ab74 wrote
Modern-age, fantasy detective. I absolutely love it! Do you by chance have more? Or plan on doing more?
RevenantSeraph t1_ja3kfm9 wrote
You can check my personal sub for more of my other works, as well as any continuation of this one, which is fairly likely to happen as I like the characters and scenario.
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