The City of Day's Sunder, Hylverea - Twenty-One Years Ago

  How hard it was for Arnzos to sleep. He giddily tossed around in a frayed fur blanket. Waiting for the sun to rise from its bed. Around thirty minutes ago, he awoke from a straight six hours of sleep. That was impressive on its own, as tomorrow held a special day that all children in Missus Mascarente’s class looked forward to. The trip to Canard Pond. Missus Mascarente always celebrated her children completing their ‘basics of life’ course. Tomorrow was that day. The final class of the course.

  Arnzos’ sister, Frinzel, had spoke of how she went to the pond two years ago. How the waters were chilled and as beautiful as the noon sky. Blue as a nobleman’s sapphire. Granted, he wasn’t that sure of what a sapphire was. Maybe some type of candy? Regardless, thinking about the sapphire would do nothing in lulling him back to bed. The young dracokin turned his head to Frinzel, who was comfortably snuggled in a separate linen covered mattress. Perhaps he could annoy her to pass some time.

  “Psst. Hey. Frinz!” Arnzos was careful not to disturb his parents. They slept opposite to their children’s beds. Positioned on the bottom edge of their cot. “Frinz. Heeelllooo!”

  “Shut up, Arn,” Frinzel hissed. She nestled her hands beside her earholes. “Go back to sleep, you roach.”

  “But I have to tell you something! It can’t wait. I’m serious.”

  She flipped on her other shoulder to face him. “Fine. What do you want?”

  “I get to go to the pond tomorrow and you don’t. Haha!”

  “I pity your next teacher, Mister Vergnaud. Your stupidity will hold his whole class back.”

  Frinzel ignored her brother just as quickly as she paid him attention. Returning to the world of dreams. Arnzos accepted that he wouldn’t sleep again for the rest of the night. To pass more time, he counted the slivers of oak that peeled from the foundation above. It worried him a tad. Seeing how many there were. He was soon distracted by a rustling that seemed to come from outside.

  Did anyone else hear it? He checked Frinzel without getting up. She either ignored it or was already back in a palace beyond reality. After her, he checked his parents. Mama slept like a log. Her blanket like a moss covering for such logs. Beside her, Papa was… not there? He vanished. Arnzos swore he saw him when he went to bed. Concern began to rattle his stomach. The rustle near the cot’s only window returned.

  Arnzos crept from his fur. As a shadow would from a torch-lit hallway. He tiptoed across the boards below. They sang their discordant notes, but not loud enough for them to disturb. He pulled the door ever so. It croaked in slow motion, from how carefully the boy moved it. Finally, enough space was there for him to slither through. He did so, and upon leaving the cot—

  “Arnzos! My boy, why are you awake?” Papa asked him. His father carried a handheld black bag. It jingled as he set it on a cheap belt. The young dracokin wondered where his father got it. As he had never seen a bag like this one around their cot.

  The boy’s father, Drezos, was skinnier by dracokin standards. His black scales began to bleach, like all dracokin experience with age. They were in the process of becoming a dark gray, similar to a raincloud. If Papa had been a younger man when he had a family, then Arnzos would have recalled more memories of his scales at a deep black. Yet they were to be a deep black no more.

  “I heard a sound,” Arnzos said. “Why are you out here so early?”

  Papa struggled to catch any words. Though, he smiled as he struggled. “I love your curiosity, boy. Well, I… I was… making money! Don’t tell your mother, but I have a secret job that I work. Yes, very secret.”

  Drezos rubbed his son’s back. The cobbled way they currently stood on was almost empty. Like it had been abandoned for decades. However, it only looked that way because of who resided here. In this part of Day's Sunder. Buildings rotted and the street decayed because the city—no, the nation—despised all who could afford to live nowhere else. They fended off disease and infestation in these horrid conditions. With a line of cots, huts, and hovels all squeezed together.

  “What’s the job, papa?”

  “If I tell you, then promise you won’t tell anyone. That includes your mother and your sister.”

  “Okay. I promise.” Arnzos leaned in, as the suspense made him excited.

  “I am… a dice handler!”

  Even at the clueless age of seven, Arnzos believed that was not an actual job. “What does a dice handler do?”

  “Plenty of taverns around Day's Sunder have these dice games. Like Chuck-a-ton or Rollpoll. I observe these games and check their dice. Make sure no one is cheating. It’s very serious. They play for money, you know.”

  The more Drezos explained it, the more sense it made as a possible profession. Plus, Papa wouldn’t lie. Lying is always bad. Arnzos’ parents have hammered that into him since he understood language. He thought of what else to say to his father, but ultimately sufficed with three words. “All right, papa.”

  “Good boy.” Drezos pat his son on the head. “Remember our promise. Don’t tell anyone. It must remain a secret.”

  Arnzos perked up his nubby shoulders. Keeping secrets was fun, though being on the other side of keeping wasn’t. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  ?

  The Present

  After he fled the outskirts of the Lord’s manor, Arnzos traveled up a winding creek that fell into a stony pond. On only half a normal amount of sleep and with his legs aching, he wished a horse would appear to make his journey easier. Or any rideable animal really. He recalled tales of his dracokin ancestors taming giant salamanders. They had scutes of a bright red and were peppered in dark spots. Great bulging beasts—suitable for war. Still, they couldn’t match up to elderwyrms. No reptilian creature could.

  He shook around to rid the unnecessary thoughts. Arnzos watched the flaming angel in the sky dip behind the horizon. Dark and cold chills were soon to arrive. The whole day he’d spent walking; it was urgent to procure as much distance from House Butcherie as possible. He achieved that, at least. The downside was he could observe no sentient life within a mile of the pond. A botanist’s dream but a hunter’s nightmare. He sighed, realizing it would likely be mushrooms for dinner.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Well, they would not forage themselves. Arnzos awkwardly harvested a batch from under a stone. Doing such work with a spear tip proved clunky. As he grabbed five mushrooms—newly cut—he heard the spectral whoosh of Phyletta above him.

  “It seems Palmgrease’s men are only valorous in his company,” Phyletta said aloud. She needn’t use her telepathy here, for there was no one to alert.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “A benefit for us. Mayhaps his team of adventurers has a similar disposition.”

  “Yup.” Arnzos popped a mushroom into his mouth. He winced, but kept chewing.

  “It’s a shame we can’t persuade them, besides maybe Ungrette. That would require too many shinies and—”

  The dracokin half-chuckled and half-gurgled on spit. “If you want to ask me a question, Phyletta, just fucking ask it.”

  She recoiled at his bluntness. However, he was correct in the assumption. Phyletta hadn’t known how to phrase her question, and continued molding it in her head until she knew the right words. She molded it now; might as well ask it now. “Why did you react that way when you killed Modra?”

  “He was an asshole, but if it’s true that he had a son…” Arnzos trailed off. He gave up on finishing his original statement. “I don’t know. I’m not allowed to feel guilt?”

  “That was a little bit more than guilt,” she said. “I understand if you don’t want to tell me.”

  “All right then. You understand. End of story.”

  Phyletta umm’d in confusion. “I’m sorry?” She meant it genuinely, but it came with a barb of condescension.

  “You said ‘I understand if you don’t want to tell me.’ And I don’t. So… end of story.”

  Arnzos didn’t mean to be so sharp-edged, but the needling nerves in his feet and the heavy pull of his legs to the dirt made it a bit harder to be nice. He chowed down on more mushrooms. Again, the taste burned into his tongue. Rancid and musky. From the terrible flavor, he knew these were edible. Yellowcaps were disgusting, but nutritious. As opposed to another species like rainpills. Those tasted as sweet as strawberries—for fifteen seconds—then they killed you in thirty.

  “That is fair. Good night, then.” Phyletta floated away. Gave him just enough space to be comfortable.

  Arnzos collected a smattering of loose wood and sticks to create his campfire. It proved harder without a sword to gather fuel. Once enough was sacrificed to make a flame, he clacked two stones together. Again and again. It vomited a spark that lit the sticks into warmth. The dark and cold chills of night would not win over him. He slept in Armond’s gear; the toasty shield of fire added to his comfortability.

  Yet it was still icy, seeing Phyletta in unease. Or was that his unease? Maybe it was both. Fathers and sons seemed a sore subject to him. He primed his tongue to apologize, but couldn’t. That mouse boy—hypothetical son of Modra—just wouldn’t leave.

  He slept instead of trying to talk.

  Morning light tickled Arnzos’ senses. The rising sun cloaked his body in gentle rays, as a mother would cloak her children when they were cold. He rose to action, with Phyletta at his side, and stamped out the dying campfire. North—the dracokin had to continue. His refreshed legs continued along a path of crunchy pebbles, which soon turned to moist soil.

  He delighted in the beauty of his surroundings. Natural lives, unharmed by the cruel hungers of civilization. Birds ate the seeds out of flowers and picked at the berries growing plumply in the lush. Squirrels raced up to treetops—or ran from them. Playful and curious. Their eyes like blackened bubbles. Constantly twitching to soak up all that the world would give them.

  Not only was his environment ethereal, but the far reaches of landmarks hundreds of miles away blessed his sight too. Mountains proudly perched, like soldiers with their backs straight. Lined up in a row, creating a barrier between the Southern and Northern Gatherings. Arnzos wondered about who settled behind the mountains—in the north. As well as if anyone over there knew about the happenings of the south. He was not well-versed enough in geography to guess.

  Arnzos pushed through brush. Tumbled through weeds. Drank at sloping streams and hunted a deer in the forest. He thanked it for its death, cooked and ate it, and slept once more. The moon’s sheen at a perfect light to lull him.

  This cycle of traveling, eating, and sleeping extended two more days. Rounding Arnzos’ journey to Lahf’ikon as four days in total. He arrived at the ruins, toppled by millennia of neglect. Different from the angular and whetted points of modern architecture, Lahf’ikon was much more blockish in its design. The ramshackle walls extended up by sixty feet. Cubic adornments decorated the battlements. Placed one by one on towers even taller than the walls.

  Enormous ironclad doors that once blocked out invaders now laid slightly ajar. Were they ajar from before or ajar after Miss Waterfowl’s team had arrived here?

  Arnzos entered the destroyed city. His mouth laid ajar in amazement. The blockish design shined here too. Homes made of greenish-blue stone gleamed in the light. The windows square-shaped. The rims of their houses rectangular. Dying roads of corroded stone led up to a second district, where even more lavish buildings resided.

  Blocks upon blocks of the vibrant stone. Perhaps, these were temples? Or palaces? Difficult to tell. Besides its design, Lahf’ikon was… quite sad to look at.

  With its dwellings beaten down and many of them destroyed. Clusters of felinian skeletons convened in the streets. Nature began to swallow the city too. A mix of lasting houses, open graveyards, and a flora superbloom. While Arnzos was in awe, the empress beside him couldn’t look at the ruins. She averted her eyes. He noticed.

  [“Everything good?”] Arnzos relayed.

  [“This brings back terrible memories.”]

  [“Why’s that?”]

  She peeked at Lahf’ikon. [“My husband. He destroyed this place. It used to be the capital of the Ena’qhy Nation.”]

  [“You heard the city’s name and didn’t connect the dots?”]

  [“I knew this place by a different name. Na’keesti. ‘The People’s Jewel’ in the Alurio language. The tongue of the felinians.”]

  [“Nothing can be done now.”] Arnzos patted a lump of blue-green stone. [“Better keep moving.”]

  The dracokin hoped Waterfowl’s team was still here. Or that they left any Psiona pearls behind. Thinking more about the excavation, it was probably beneficial for Arnzos to concoct a story for his being there. He wore the clothes of Butcherie, after all. A black and red stitched hood atop him. Rubbing his chin in reflection, he attached ideas to one another. Crafting a new, falsified identity.

  In Arnzos' fictional story, his squad of men traveled to apprehend a dangerous felinian. He rallied villagers of Arhuinim to attack Palmgrease’s manor. A fight ensued, Palmgrease escaped, but the damage was quite severe. What would this felinian’s name be? Hmm, maybe… Vaelar. Yes. Quite a sound name for a troublemaker. So, this fake group of Butcherie knights traveled until their feet felt like molasses. With his cunning tactics, ‘Vaelar’ ambushed the troop and killed everyone but him. He only got away because he tripped into a ditch.

  Though, Arnzos had to formulate a name for his character. It irked him faintly, but he chose the moniker of ‘Drezos.’ Modeled after his father. He would disguise as Drezos Loftclaw, knight of House Butcherie. Then, a natural question popped into his mind. One he would think a member of Waterfowl’s team might ask: ‘Why did you go here instead of back to the manor?’

  Now, he could characterize this 'Drezos.' This identity—'Drezos' could be perpetually spooked. Always hunched with eyes darting. Like he’s afraid the ground itself might jump out and eat him. Therefore, when they ask that question, he could answer with: ‘I thought you could help me hunt Vaelar down.’ Was always easier to play meek than it was to play tough. Plus, if he added in a dash of unintelligence, it might bode even better.

  Unless, the team murdered those they viewed as annoying. Arnzos hadn’t gotten that perception of them; the Lord described them more like paid hands and not assassins. Except for the Lyzanite. Aipo. Killing did seem his profession.

  All Arnzos’ ends seemed tied. He wasn’t averse to improvisation either. The made up backstory would service him. If they were even here at all. He took in a gulp of stale air—courtesy of Lahf’ikon—and trudged up to the second district. The one of crushed palaces or broken temples. Interested as to what he might find.