He meticulously scoured the foothills over the course of a few days, finally finding a cluster of the flowers blooming in a copse. The starburst gentian grew low to the ground and was surrounded by narrow, dark green leaves; the flowers themselves were a bright buttery yellow, which bunched together as groups of tiny blooms that burst from the same stem. The small flowers grew in the shape of a five-pointed star. Adrissu cut far more than he needed, carefully near the root, then tied the bunch of stems together with twine. Once dried, he could safely store them for a long while—hopefully long enough to convince Ruan to partake in the ritual.
Then, he needed wood from an Aefrayan willow. That would be harder—elves built their religious temples in such willow trees and regarded them as sacred. While he could certainly descend upon an unsuspecting elven village and rip up enough of their temple tree to suffice before they could mount enough of a defense to truly threaten him, such an endeavor would not go unnoticed. He would likely be tracked, or someone might recognize him as Zamnes... No, it would be better to try and get ahold of the wood undetected. That would take longer, but would be safer in the long run.
Getting into Aefraya would be easy enough—flying under the cover of night, high in the clouds, would ensure that he would not be seen—but locating a tree that he could plunder without scrutiny proved to be more difficult. He lingered in the capitol city that surrounded Castle Aefraya for a while, poring over various maps—the local cartographer was enamored with all the business, he was sure.
Nothing seemed ideal, but after a few days of study, he decided that the aptly-named village of Solitude would be his best option. It was a small logging town right along the border of its namesake, the Forest of Solitude, that had once been prosperous. But when orc forces encroached from the west, it had largely been abandoned. A nearby military post was all that remained, along with a village about a mile away, which housed the family members of the outpost’s soldiers. Though the village had dwindled, it once had a flourishing temple, so the tree there still stood and was tended to by the village residents.
The temple was large enough that the elves might expect travelers to visit the holy sight, but remote enough that no one of consequence would mark his coming and going. The nearby military outpost could prove to be a problem, but if he was sneaky, he might be able to get in and out without being detected.
With that settled, he headed for Solitude the next night. Flying there was easy: he arrived in the middle of the night, landing silently amongst the trees about a mile from the sleeping village. He was sure there would be at least one guard, but the village was small enough that there were no city gates to slip through. Magically silencing his footsteps, he walked through the woods in his elven form, until it gave way to a dirt path that led to the small village—the tall willow at its center.
Just as he suspected, a single elven soldier stood guard before it, though he looked bored and sleepy. Clinging to the shadows, Adrissu crept close enough to seize the elf with his magic.
“Sleep,” he whispered, letting the magic echo from his word and settle around the soldier. Still unaware of Adrissu, he blinked hard a few times, before wobbling on his feet and sinking to the ground.
Adrissu swept past him, hurrying through the open space and not slowing until he was cloaked within the low branches of the willow temple. Only then did he closely inspect his surroundings. The inside of the trunk was partly hollowed out, idols of elven deities carved inside. Simple wooden benches were arranged in a semi-circle around the tree, and grass sprouted up around its roots, although it was surrounded by hard-packed dirt, the same as the single path that cut through the town.
He would have to act quickly and quietly. He only needed enough wood to burn for the ritual; cutting from the trunk would be too noticeable. Instead, he peered up through the branches, reaching out with tendrils of magic to grasp a branch high up enough that it would hopefully not be missed.
This would be the most dangerous part—he yanked on the branch in his grasp, and it snapped off from the trunk with a resounding crack. In the silent night it may as well have been a thunderbolt.
Adrissu winced, holding the branch up where it still hung high in the tree, listening intently for any sign that his presence had been noticed, or if anyone was coming to investigate the sudden sound. But after a minute, and then two, no one came.
Finally, he relaxed his deathgrip on the branch and brought it down slowly, until the supple wood was in his hands. He wound the loosest parts of it into a wide loop, like a whip, and tucked it into his sleeve as he crept away from the willow tree, silencing his steps again as he went.
What he had just done was blasphemy under elven law, and while he could have easily dispatched any soldier that approached him, he knew it was best to simply not be noticed here. He didn’t relax until he was deep within the forest of Solitude, ready to fly away once more.
Now, the only thing left was perhaps going to be the most difficult—the ingredients were to be prepared in a bowl made of dwarven beryl. The gem itself was rare; not impossibly so, but it would be a pain to track down. The bigger problem was procuring such a bowl. Dwarven beryl was mined only in the mountains of Robruolor, the kingdom of the dwarves. An artisan skilled enough to work it into a bowl would likewise only be found in Robruolor, and would certainly charge a small fortune. But since their defeat at the hands of elves some thirty years prior, dwarves had only become more secluded and insular, trading with few outsiders and keeping their borders largely closed off. Getting there would be annoying, and finding a dwarven artisan who would either sell such a bowl, or be willing to craft one, even more so.
Adrissu had no contacts in Robruolor and little knowledge of the land, aside from what he could glean from world maps and common hearsay. He had only seen a handful of dwarves in his life, but was loath to take the form of one, squat and hairy as they were.
But what else could be done? He needed the bowl, no matter how difficult it was to procure. So when Ruan was on a long assignment, another months-long caravan detail, Adrissu informed the council of Polimnos that he would be on vacation for perhaps a month; gathered up some of the more valuable dwarven relics from his hoard, along with a sizeable amount of gold; and took to the sky once more. This time it was nearly two days across the cold northern sea before the distant, rocky shores of Robruolor came into sight.
Most dwarven cities were underground, but he remained high in the sky until he finally came to the tall mountain that boasted the largest city in Robruolor, the capitol of Gylnefjell. He was unwilling to take on a dwarven guise, so instead took the form of a human: elves would still be entirely unwelcome, but humans were prone to wanderlust and thus unlikely to raise many eyebrows.
He made his way into the bustling heart of the underground city and was relieved to see a few other humans there amidst all the dwarves, so he immediately set out to find stoneworkers and jewelers that might be capable of creating such a bowl.
The first day, he had very little luck. The two most prominent jewelers in the city declined him immediately, without much reason—though he supposed their sneers, as he crouched to step through the short doorways and stood with his hair brushing the ceiling, were reason enough.
Then he broached the topic to some of the stoneworkers and mining companies, to get a sense of what the cost of an appropriately-sized raw dwarven beryl would be. One laughed him out of the shop—it took everything he had not to slap the snobby little dwarf in the face before he left—and the other entertained the idea, but quoted him nearly ten thousand gold pieces for the raw crystal alone. Adrissu knew the material would be expensive, but he was certain the proprietor had inflated the price and was taking advantage of him.
He had been asking around for several days, walking down another of the endless, dim stone streets that composed the underground city, when the hair on the back of his neck began to prickle with the sense of being watched. He would know the presence of another dragon anywhere.
The urge to flee from an unknown dragon’s territory seized him, but he took only a few steps, before stumbling to a stop. They were already aware of his presence—he could feel their eyes on him—there was no running now.
Adrissu slowly turned around, eyes flickering through the street to find whoever was watching him. Across the stone avenue, standing in the entryway of what looked like a residential building, was a human—a woman, nearly as tall as him, with short-cropped blonde hair and form-fitting clothes that looked better suited to a forest hunt than whatever business a human might have in an underground dwarven city. When their eyes met, she smiled; and if he was not already certain that she was also a dragon, he would be sure of it now. The way her teeth flashed was decidedlyferal, familiar as his own cruel grin.
“Hail, traveler,” she called, raising one hand lazily. “It’s rare to see another of our kind in such a far-flung place.”
Adrissu hesitated, looking her over once more. She didn’t look armed. Of course, she did not need to have a weapon on her illusory form to harm him. This was obviously her domain—he had not done enough research on dragons in the area, clearly—but she also didn’t appear outright hostile to him, only stiff and uncertain in the way dragons often were when meeting for the first time.
“A rare occurrence indeed, but hopefully a welcome one,” he answered steadily, walking slowly toward her with his hands open at his sides in an exaggerated gesture of goodwill.
“Come inside,” she said, beckoning him with one hand. Without waiting to see if he would follow, she turned and stepped into the building, leaving the door slightly ajar. Now that he was looking, the door was clearly human-sized. Internally he kicked himself for having missed it—he never should have let his guard down in a new place like this. But it was too late now, and he silently followed the woman and closed the door behind him.
She was waiting for him at the opposite end of a wide foyer. A closed door was behind her, and the foyer itself was quite plain: stone walls over a stone floor with a long, narrow rug running from one door to the next with a few decorations on the walls. There was no indication if this was her actual home; considering how sparse it was, he guessed it was unlikely that she actually lived here.
In here, her presence loomed all the larger, sending goosebumps shivering down the length of his spine. Instinctively, he hunched a bit lower: a stark contrast to her, standing tall and dominant at the other end of the room.
