.^^ Dominique ^^

— Josef —

Following the sound of the dragon's roar, I traveled deeper into the tunnels, before having to crouch, and sigh. "Evagil? Make all the Tunnels big enough for me to walk in, please? If that means a restructure, I'm more than happy to wait a moment."

'Hmm? Ah, Yes, you are too big for those tunnels. Hold on.'

The ground shook, the rock around me condensing, it seemed, in an effort to increase the size and stability of the tunnels, while also retaining their shape and not hitting the ones that crossed nearby while expanding.

I started walking again, as I heard more draconian roaring, and entered the main chamber of the mountain, a massive space that spanned nearly the entire width of the mountain, give or take 50 feet on either side. 900ft across, a wobbly circle...

And filled with chunks of crystal and gemstones, both cut and uncut, being lorded over by a large dragon, perhaps fifty feet long, (the same size as the Matron,) who was now staring at me, growling softly. Pure white, with the four-leg-two-wing combination that gave him the title 'Dragon', though his wings were tattered and frail.

"Oh! Hello, sorry to scare you, I wasn't aware there was someone down here! I am Josef, how do you do?" I smiled at the dragon, and waited for a response.

"I am François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, High-Dragon and Lord of this Mountain... who are you?" He sat up primly, almost seeming to Frown at me, though the scaled lips and harsh beak made it hard to tell.

"Ah... I am Lord Viscount Josef Von Eisenberg, and I have recently purchased and magically claimed this mountain, the surrounding forest, and the mountain to the north of this one. I am, in fact, the Lord of this Mountain." I chuckled.

He narrowed his eyes. "By what right does one purchase the land of another?" He asked, sounding offended.

"By What rights does someone who never purchased a property claim it as his own?" I fired back.

His lips curled back slowly. "I won this mountain from its previous inhabitants, the Dwarves, and I have allowed the Lesser Dragons to live in its tunnels."

"You mean you stole it and slaughtered those who didn't want to leave, or that you legally challenged the owner of the mountain to an honorable duel and defeated him?" I raised an eyebrow.

"It is not THEFT!!! I Claimed it!!! It's MINE!!!" He snarled.

"Sorry, 'fraid not, buckaroo. You should just surrender, my friend... you are entirely outmatched." I calmly informed him.

He snarled again, and stalked forward. "Surrender? I think not." He lunged, and I grinned, sliding under him and lassoing his mouth shut with the cable. When I was all the way behind him, I hauled on the rope, dragging his head towards me and between his legs, flipping him into his back.

When he attempted to stand, I settled a foot on his upside-down chin, then gripped the floor, so it was my strength against his, straight-up. After a few minutes of struggling and flailing about, he managed to lift his head up a few inches, but that only prompted me to growl, and slam his head back down with an extra push of my already maxed-out muscles, which I was sure would cause me some soreness in the morning.

A nearby crystal began ringing harshly, when his claws twitched, and the sound spread by virtue of resonance, until it was so loud that the ground around us was shaking, and my eardrums had popped.

After a moment, I used a bit of air magic, my Gust Spell, to rub against the crystals, and make a new, opposite resonance, effectively canceling his out. Then I healed my eardrums, and nodded. "You done now?"

He grunted, unable to speak, and sighed deeply.

"Now do please pay attention, I don't like repeating myself: I am Viscount Eisenberg, your Lord and Master. You reside in my Mountain, and at my leisure, and so long as you continue to do so, you are my Subject. As such, you will behave as a proper gentleman, so as to not sully my name; obviously, as one of my subjects, your behavior reflects directly upon my own name and social standing. You will obey any policies I set forth, immediately, and with great fervor, and you will not commit violence upon any others I allow to live here, or I will discipline you most harshly. Do you understand the terms of your Surrender?" I frowned down at him, and grinned when the Dragon-Tamer Skill activated.

He relaxed slowly, and then shrugged his wings, pretty much all he could do like this.

I stepped off his chin, and allowed him to stand, before touching the Hoard of crystals and sending them into my Hidden Space.

He whined deeply, like a very large dog, and laid down slowly. "I understand... can I please have my Hoard back?"

"You can have the crystals back, yes." I released them, and he pounced on the pile of crystals, stacking them against a far wall, in tiered sections, as if to create a Church Organ. I hummed softly, looking at the set-up. "Is that... a musical instrument?" I asked slowly.

He nodded. "Yes. I am a Bard, and this is my Instrument, my Crystals. Sometimes, I accidentally transmute them into diamonds or other precious gems... but I replace them easily." He gazed woefully at the empty, clean stone floor that had replaced his nest of gemstones.

I grinned. "That's very interesting! So, why did you drive out the Dwarves that lived here before?"

"I wanted the Mountain. I asked for it, and they said no, so I took it. Then it was mine. Now you have taken it from me. That is the way of Dragons." He said simply, showing not a shred of remorse.

"Hmm... and how long ago was that?"

"How long? I cannot be certain, as I have not been outside in the entire time I've been here. I don't fit down the tunnels." He shrugged his wings, and curled up in front of his instrument, closing his eyes.

I hummed, and looked at the tunnel I'd come down. "Is that so..."

'Any further condensing of the Stone will cause it to become unstable.' Evagil spoke before I could ask anything.

'What about an exit that leads to a little lake... maybe that meadow everyone camped in?' I suggested.

'Acceptable...' he sighed, and a hole drilled itself into the side of the wall, slightly lower than the floor, so it cut out a dome-like shape, and tunneled until it showed the outside, then the tunnel turned a few times, disallowing any direct views in or out.

Then, the entire meadow sank about fifty feet, forming a stone bowl with a dirt layer about a foot thick. While I was admiring that handiwork, a hole was tapped somewhere under the mountain, and water began flowing past me, out of the mountain and directly into the lake. The edge of the lake then stretched out a tendril, it looked like, connecting to a natural river three hundred meters or so to the south.

"There we are! Should you wish to leave, there's an exit." I nodded.

He opened one eye, then hummed. "And it is Daytime?"

"No, it's nighttime at the moment."

"Mm. I will sleep, then." He shrugged, and closed the eye.

I chuckled at the thought of a Dragon Sleeping in my mountain, and then went off exploring again for a little while, before returning to Saccharine, and recounting the experience to him.

He chuckled when I finally finished, taking a deep breath to refill my lungs. "So, What I got from that, was that you fought and tamed an adolescent High-Dragon?"

"Adolescent? He wasn't fully grown?" I asked.

"No, not even close. If he was the same size as the Matron, I'd call his age about 200 years or so, his Rank an A+(maaaybe S-?)and his conquering of the City about 30-40 years ago. I haven't heard about it, but that doesn't mean much, seeing as I live 200 miles south of here." He shrugged.

"Oh... well then. Let's get some sleep, and then we'll go to the cabin in the morning, ja?" I laid down in front of the little fire he'd started, and sighed deeply, enjoying the simple feelings of the cold floor and warm fire.

He laid on top of me, grumbling. "Thank you, I was just about to try to figure out how to sleep without touching the floor. It's like raw ice."

"Mm." I nodded, and cuddled him closer, where my warmth would encircle him, then fell asleep.

—

I had released the Matron into the open portion of my plateau, letting her relax as the Dragon Tamer Skill sent her into a peaceful daze, and Willam stared at the sleeping beast, calmly laying atop the massive crop of anthracite I had planted across the plateau, and the tiny fledgling that was currently gnawing on a bone from the boar I'd fed to the both of them.

I tossed the Pelt over a rack under the eaves of the cabin, and looked at Willam. "You done staring? I have three pelts from the Wyvern, and I plan on making armor from it, but you wanted the bodies, right? For 500 silver a piece? And how much for the Matron? I'm basically going to farm the scales she sheds, so that Mage of yours can buy the scales off me cheap, ten silver a piece." I leaned against the cabin, waiting for him to recover.

"Yeah... right... so that's 15 gold for the live Matron... 1.5 for the three pelts... and your pay doubles again, as you're an S Rank Ranger..." he sighed, rubbing his face tiredly.

"And again, leave it at five, give me the other fifteen in properties. If you run out of places in the city, buy me the surrounding lands and forests. It's not that difficult, Willam, and I'll be making you all kinds of things, so it's not like it's one-sided!" I chuckled.

He nodded. "I know, but our city is not rich enough to handle all this..."

"Don't worry about that, Willam, my Port City will get you the revenue you need. After all, it's a C- Port City now, I believe? Very nice, ja?" I gestures down at UnderTown, which was expanded, and thriving.

It looked a little different than I'd imagined, and had begun expanding outward, instead of up, but I'd demanded that the forest be left alone, so a wall was built, surrounding it, and most buildings had received a second floor, but that was as high as they would go. Dwarves apparently didn't like heights, go figure.

But, apparently, the Dwarves had fixed that with an ingenious solution: build Down! They had already begun mining projects and such, maneuvering around the sewer system, while I'd directed Evagil to harden the sand between the city and the ocean into sandstone, then the dirt behind that into stone, and a third line of defense so that the underground didn't flood, a series of gravity-powered bilge-pumps to redirect water on almost any scale. Even a full-scale flood would not last more than a few minutes, with the potency of that system.

It also diverted some of that water, filtering it over a circular path that led about six miles in total length, (traveling back and forth under the wall,) and making sure to hit several magical items that cleansed all the water that ran over them, (powered by leeching the mana in the water itself,) thus removing the possibility of poison in our water.

Then, the water surfaced in wells and fountains, flowing through pipes that provided potable drinking water to every building and thoroughfare. According to Evagil, when it was entirely finished, the rank of the city would increase dramatically, because not even the biggest port cities or even Capitals had access to perfectly clean water like that.

He chuckled. "Yes... yes, it's quite impressive... but you're still calling it UnderTown?" He asked, glancing at me.

"It's important to remember one's roots." I shrugged.

"That's true..." he nodded, and sighed. "Alright, well... I'll get you the forest around the town, as much of it as I can. That'll give you, and therefore us, hunting rights, which should recoup some of our losses."

"Good. Just make sure I get all the pelts. And give me a few people who aren't afraid of heights, to work the pelts with me up here. They don't have to have the Skill, I can Gift that to them." I nodded.

He grinned. "As long as you cut the ties so they're not your subjects, I'm cool with that."

"No, if they live on my property and work for me, I'd say they qualify. They'll be Squires, though, so that's nice. A Rank-Up for them, definitely." I nodded.

"I suppose... and you're not the type to abuse that position, so that's fine. I was intending to place some orphans with you, instead of sending them into the Monastery..." he frowned, scratching his chin.

"What's wrong with the monastery? Too churchy for your tastes, making the kids grow up religious?" I snorted.

He laughed. "Something like that. I have nothing against the churches, they're rather good at policing their own people, but children are like sponges, they believe whatever they're told first."

"I know. I'll happily handle an orphanage up here for you, I don't mind... I'll have to make it Child-Proof, but guaranteed they'll grow up with no fear of heights!" I laughed at the thought, and asked Evagil to start hollowing out the back portion of the arch, the one away from the water, by way of compressing the stone into the shape of a series of rooms and stairways, like what the Dwarves were doing.

The rock under us shivered, and I could feel the work beginning. "What... was that?" Willam asked softly.

"The Tree beginning to build an orphanage, like I said." I nodded, and then looked down at the city. "It's quite interesting, won't it? Watching a City be born?"

"Yes, it is... I'm impressed, to be honest, I didn't think such a thing was possible." He shrugged.

"You live in a city that was built by a Mage." I remarked dryly.

"Point to you." He grinned.

"So! Let's get to work!" I rubbed my hands together, and sat down with my journal, drawing plans for the underground dwarf city as a whole, while Evagil corrected me where work had already been done.

I used dwarfish workmanship, the crafting marks they left behind to claim their work as dwarfish, if the architecture didn't give it away first. The rocks parted at my command, but I left a good bit of 'destruction' and a few 'cave-ins', Some collapses portions of tunnel, some unfinished, because the Dwarves were enjoying having actual work to do, mining out their city.

The above-ground portion was to greet visitors, sell products, give the illusion that there was no underground other than the sewers, but the underground portion of UnderTown was where they wanted to go for solace. The tunnels were dwarf-sized, tight and compact, just the way they liked it, and the pipes carrying water were placed thoughtfully to make sure everyone had clean water.

Once that was finished, I added another floor to all the non-residential buildings, expanding them and making the outsides look more clean and welcoming. Each upper building was made to allow humans and elves, properly sized so no one was crushed... except me, but I was used to that.

Evagil warned me about the Storms that blew through this area at the beginning of spring and Autumn, when the hot air came in and stirred up massive gusts of air and flooding, and a thought occurred, looking out over the rocks that were scattered around in the ocean, broken off from the cliffs and such.

'Can you gather those and form a wall? High enough it would block the lesser winds and the waves? Some breakwaters and such, tougher docks, those as well.'

'Quelling the wrath of Mother Nature is never wise, Child... but avoiding it, that I will gladly do.' He chuckled, and I watched in amazement as the rocks began crumbling, rolling in towards the city, and forming extensions to the docks, while the stone out in the bay shivered, and rose from the ground, forming a half-circle that enclosed the entire bay.

'A gate would be nice... one that you could close to keep out anything unsavory.'

Three gates, each big enough for the biggest of ships, opened in the wall, on either side of the river and across from the town, and those pieces of stone moved forward, becoming breakwaters and moving on iron tracks in the sea floor.

Massive grates that would allow fish through opened under the surface, and I nodded as the fishermen recovered, returning to their work. "Unflappable folk, fishermen. Very sturdy." I commented, and Willam stared at the craziness for a moment, then laughed.

"Very true... yes. How are you doing that? The Land's Spirit can't be that powerful." He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Considering I own several thousand acres of forest and three mountains, yes, yes he can." I grinned as he silenced his protests and then looked around for a way down. "Ride the elevator to get down, my friend." I pointed at the basket-Crane, which spun slowly until it was over land, instead of the ocean.

He glanced at the massive crane, and shook his head slowly. "No, I'm good... I'll just teleport home... good day, Josef."

"Suit yourself. Good day, Willam. Send the clerks in the Guild my regards, they've been rather helpful." I shrugged casually, as the crane returned to its position.

"I will." He nodded, and disappeared.