[Ouroboros' End]
Already waiting for them next to the ramp that was now extending out of the starweaver's side and onto the dock, Allaire greeted Darganth when he returned from the negotiations, "Should we expect to be bothered again soon or were they reasonable?" She asked.
"Neither really, we promised to approach them once we have time. But for now they shouldn't bother us." Darganth said.
Nodding, Allaire spoke with a resigned sigh, "You have to take what you can get."
"For the demonstration we made it feel inadequate." Neandra said, her tone similarly less optimistic than Allaire's as her words were.
"Certainly, I could feel the dragon's fear all the way to here." Jennia interjected from atop the ramp.
Raising his head, Darganth looked past Allaire's shoulder and toward where his other wife's voice came from. Sweeping his gaze over the mix of draconians and Vagha's solar dragons that were unloading some of their cargo, he quickly spotted Jennia and Enilla amid the busy crowd.
"Yeah, but they were surprisingly unaffected by my presence itself. I think it was almost solely the token that surprised them." Darganth said as the mother-daughter duo joined the circle in which they stood.
His words drew a thoughtful look from Neandra. Replaying the conversation in her head, this time she focused on the details she had previously overlooked in favor for staying ready in case they attack. Paying special attention to the three enforcers' expressions, her eyebrow unconsciously rose as she saw a brief flash of fighting instinct that appeared in their eyes when Darganth's dragon authority washed over them.
Having confirmed Darganth's suspicion, her thoughts started to wander. Such a reaction definitely wasn't the response of someone experiencing Dragon's Fear for the first time. Normally, people would at least flinch if the power gap was still small enough for them to be affected, while those that were above that threshold only register its presence but don't feel its effects.
The immediate battle-readiness the three showed instead indicated experience with dragon's fear and training to transform the shock into action. As such, Neandra's mind wandered to the ramifications of the same realization Darganth had come to.
"You think Irsyr somehow missed a dragon clan somewhere in the region?" She asked him a few moments later.
"If so, then they're skilled. I've heard of some dragons purposefully living in weaker universes to stay undetected while using the passage of time to grow stronger, but it's not a common tactic nor one that should make it easy to hide from the Locis he had sent out." He guessed.
"Do you plan to search for them?" Allaire asked.
"No, at least not yet. Maybe we'll ask for them when we inevitably schedule that meeting with the representatives for the three ascendants." He responded.
Allaire nodded in response to this.
"With that out of the way, how are our plans for the prisoners we've brought with us?" She asked. While it had already been a few days since the pirate attack, they hadn't yet decided how to deal with the leader.
The decision on what to do with most of her crew had been relatively easy. They neither knew something they shouldn't nor were they particularly dangerous, with the solar dragons in their crew outmatching most of them even when transformed, so they'd simply drop them off by whoever would pay for their bounty.
The captain herself, on the other hand, presented quite the conundrum. While the woman had been quite forthcoming with who had placed which bounty on her head and the fates each of the four groups likely had planned for her, her words were naturally heavily biased.
Despite this, they had originally formed the framework of a plan, though that came undone when the woman drew conclusions out of Neandra's absence during the battle and her later showing of power. While they had initially thought of it as only a lucky guess, the fact that she was regularly asking her guards to speak with 'the ascendant woman' since two days before their arrival in the Realm Shard more or less disproved that idea.
"Do you think she might become more cooperative again once she learns that all three ascendant factions are trying to win us over to their side?" Enilla proposed.
"Probably the opposite. She should be aware of all the same reasons that made me decide to hide my status as an ascendant, so she might hope for a massive reward in exchange for exposing me." Neandra said in opposition to the idea.
Enilla paused at those words. Frowning slightly at the implications, she couldn't help but question a moment later, "So you want to get the reward for her death from one of her rivals?"
"It would be easier." Darganth said, prompting the others to nod in agreement. Before one of them could say something, he then added, "Though she was surprisingly cooperative at times, so maybe we could solve two problems and use her to get her family on our side."
The idea raised some eyebrows among the others. But while the idea in general was good, Darganth also knew that they had no information on the captain's family beyond what she had told them, so he wasn't surprised when Neandra reacted critically.
"Is that worth the trouble? They certainly aren't people the ascendants' organizations or even the second rate groups deem important, otherwise she'd have had more people caring that she's brought back alive instead of dead."
Darganth shrugged at this, "In my mind, that makes only better prospects. Without revealing that you're an ascendant, we've got only a few options to get ourselves established as an independent group. Besides, the fact that they are only a small group means we have more incentives we can use to win them over. And her family seems to be quite wealthy for their station, so they might be our best option."
While she saw the logic behind his words, Neandra wasn't entirely convinced by Darganth's arguments. Money might be the only bottleneck in the short term, but once their attempts at building a power base bore fruit, they'd have no problem with this. Thus, in the long term, it was more important to find allies that could help them contest the established powers or assimilate them into the empire they were forming.
"We've gone over this before, I doubt we'll get a more productive result this time." Allaire interrupted before the discussion could pick up. Waiting a moment until all eyes turned to her, she continued, "I know you two have learned to focus on the larger picture, but we don't even know how long it'll be until we're remotely qualified to count as just a second-rate group. So let's focus on the immediate problems and deal with the rest when it comes up."
Pausing for a moment, Darganth nodded in response to the suggestion.
"Well, if something goes wrong with this, it might cause quite the chaos, that's better than spending half a decade in negotiations and dealing with small fry." He said, taking a look at the decision from a new perspective. Turning his head toward Neandra along with it, he then gave her a questioning look.
Laughing lightly at his words, she said, "What are you looking at me like that? You know me well enough, I'll always prefer action over all of that boring stuff."
"Alright. I'll meet you at her cell in a minute, I'm just gonna give Vagha some of the tasks I have in mind for his group." Darganth said.
When they walked up the ramp toward the starweaver a few moments later, the stream of boxes and other cargo their companions had carried off board had slowed down. What little that was still left was meanwhile carried by the golems Irsyr had previously used to load the vessel. While they were noticeably slower without the dragon himself or someone else controlling them, the dragons and draconians had carried anything they needed for the moment themselves.
Thus, with little traffic blocking him, Darganth soon reached Vagha. Standing together with Selvi, the two solar dragons were watching from the ship's railing as the rest of their group bickered over what to do with their corner of the hall. With this being the first day they could spend outside the starweaver in weeks, there naturally were differing priorities, with suggestions ranging from a small bar in a tent for the entire crew to a campfire being thrown around.
As Darganth walked toward them, the two soon noticed him and turned their attention from their group of friends.
"I know that look, we won't be getting much time to relax here, right?" Vagha asked, seeing the coming request in Darganth's expression before the latter even started talking.
"If it helps, we'll hopefully get a permanent base of operations soon." Darganth answered him.
Visibly undecided whether that helped or not, Vagha continued by asking, "So, what can we do for you?"
"I need you and your kin to scout out the surroundings for me. Nothing grand, just sitting down in bars or taverns and listening in on the conversation is enough. Though maybe focus on merchants and other travelers and find out more about the other ports." Darganth said.
The latter part of the request was prompted by the sudden arrival of the three groups from the ascendant's organizations and the pirate. While he hadn't yet made his mind up about it, the chaos that came from that had made Darganth start considering shifting the starweaver to one of the smaller ports.
Unaware of these thoughts, Vagha answered with some surprise in his voice, "I'll tell the others."
"Then I'll stop intruding on your moment." Darganth said with a grin, his gaze briefly switching between Vagha and Selvi a few times.
Turning around just as his words earned him an eye-roll from the two dragons, he disappeared in a flash of spatial energy as he teleported below deck. As soon as he arrived at his destination, the sound of the captured pirate captain's voice reached his ears.
"I was wondering how long it would take for you to come here after I felt the landing." The woman said. Turning toward her voice at this, Darganth raised an eyebrow at the grin that was plastered on her face despite her situation.
Sitting on the floor of a solid metal cell, she was covered in chains that kept her captured. Connecting to all eight corners of the room, they not only held her in place by winding around her arms, neck, and torso, but also helped suppress her mana. Together with the enchantments glowing on the floor and walls of the cell, this completely blocked her ability to project it outside of her body and mostly prevented her from using it internally.
Though as the latter capability wasn't fully blocked, she could still use many abilities that didn't extend beyond her body, even if doing so took great difficulty. And that included her transformation.
Due to that, another security mechanism had been installed in her cell in the form of two discs, one on the floor and one on the ceiling. Measuring two meters in diameter, they filled about a third of the cell's area and were connected with thin wires to each of the chains that bound the woman.
The moment any sort of transformation magic would start to affect her body, these two magic items would unleash hundreds of lightning strikes' worth of electricity into the metal chains, using their direct contact with her body to latch onto her and flood her body with electricity irrespective of the form she took. Even if that didn't immediately knock her out, something that Darganth doubted considering how much energy each disc stored, it would at least immobilize her for long enough that one of them could easily bring her back under control.
Quickly studying these security mechanisms in response to her good mood, Darganth soon moved his attention to her. Silently watching her anticipatory look, he made a point of crossing his arms just as Neandra marched into the hallway.
Upon seeing her, the chained woman huffed with a mix of glee and haughtiness before she spoke, "So I'm getting out of here today."
Almost willing to give Neandra a subtle nod to let her run wild at the arrogant tone the woman showed, Darganth shook the thought out of his head and stepped toward the door. By then, the rest of the group had also arrived in the hallway, with Serania having joined on the way, and were watching closely as he opened the cell and let the chains clatter to the floor with a snap of his fingers.
"But whether or not that change of scenery is permanent will depend on your parents. Considering the damage you did to our ship, the bounty for your safe return alone won't be enough." Darganth said as he dragged her out of the cell with a telekinetic tug.
Before the woman could say something to that, Neandra added, "And don't get any ideas. You might've found out more than I'd like, but that also means that you're quite a bit of trouble. With the shit you've already pulled, the balance between your worth and the trouble you're causing is already quite even, so don't do anything that might make it tip."
While not reacting fully dismissive to her words, the woman only gave Neandra a bored nod in response.
"Well, let's get this over with." Darganth said with a sigh before motioning toward the door. Waiting a moment until their captive started walking toward it, Darganth then followed after at the rear of the formation that encircled the woman while they made their way back toward the deck and afterward out of the hall.