.^^ Behir ^^

— Teagan —

I sighed and gave my daughter a disapproving glare. "Honestly, dear, that's not funny. We were worried about you!"

Tommy frowned. "It's not my fault that you guys hear an explosion and think 'Tommy must be making trouble!' Honestly, when have I ever given you that impression? There's a difference between Mischievous Chemist and Mad Bomber, you know!!!"

Caroline laughed. "True, but still. You already ate, I can smell-... shepherds pie, maybe?"

"Yes, I cooked for Sariel's Family. Now! They came into the city from two directions, but I sent some guards to look down the path, and then report back, so we have some downtime! Let's relax and eat some pie! Ooh! Hey cutie, you missed a hell of a little party!" Tommy laughed, and hugged Gladrinon, who was now visible, holding the Lute of the Rose I'd given to him, (mostly because I had no idea how to use it, and he was a Bard, so it made sense).

Sandy's mother chuckled, leading us all back into the compound. "I agree. Let us all relax, and deal with dragons after the celebration. And there are those of you that are going home immediately, yes?" She asked.

I nodded. "Indeed. Lady Kyrew? Would you like to stay until morning?"

She hummed. "Well, honestly, that was the quickest I've ever managed to leave our Estate, so you have my thanks, but I did promise to stay a little while... lady Tommy, keep my son safe, and barring that, keep him healthy. Goodbye, for now, love, come to the compound when Tommy goes on her mission." She smiled at Tommy, kissing her son's horns, (to his intense embarrassment,) and then walked off towards her family's compound.

"So, did your research show anything significant?" I asked Karon and Gladrinon, as we settled inside the house.

Sandy nodded, sitting on Cassidy's lap without thinking. "I'd like to know that as well."

"They're coming from the north, but that much isn't a surprise... what is surprising is their coming here. I read reports that they are in seven different locations... which confuses me." Gladrinon hummed.

"Unless there's just a really large clutch of them, this time around." Cassidy offered, and stroked Sandy's thighs gently, letting her know where she was sitting. She went very still, and her mother began cackling with laughter at the slow-but-steady reddening of her entire pale face and ears.

I cleared my throat. "Yes, that would be my guess. There were 26 babies here, and one adolescent. If they're in seven different places in the same numbers, that's almost 14 times their normal brood size, correct?"

Sandy cleared her throat. "Yes... quite. But it could just be that the northern conclaves are being pushed south by a different predator... maybe an infestation of Behir?"

Kaza shivered, and made an odd motion, tapping two fingers against her collarbone. "C'laze-Dehin." She spat venomously.

Caroline, Cassidy, and Sandy all snapped their gazes to her, and Sandy hissed softly, clapping her hands over Sariel's ears with lightning-quick reflexes. "Mother! There are sensitive ears!" She chided the older elf.

Kaza grumbled a few more words, and then sighed. "It could very well be an infestation of Fulminating Cliff Scavengers... that would explain most of this."

"So if we found the thing that drove them south and killed it, they'd return to their normal hunting grounds?" I asked.

"Probably, but if it drove away the Dragons, its obviously more dangerous than them." She sighed.

"That does make sense, but we can handle it, I suspect." I nodded, and smoothed back my hair, which had been ruffled by the Cloak of Electricity spell I'd draped over myself to make me immune to the dragon's attacks.

She hummed. "Your nonchalant attitude when attacked by a hoard of Wyrmlings is quite telling... Yes, I suppose an adventure could be interesting. It's been a while since I left Jerel, now that I think about it."

Sandy sighed. "You should stay and protect the city, mother. You're the most powerful creature here, besides the Queen's Guard, and I'd never ask them to fight when they should be protecting the Queen."

She grumbled again, and leaned back on the couch. "When did you get all responsible?" She asked petulantly.

"When I took care of myself on a different continent for 40 years. When did you get all irresponsible?" She fired back instantly, and to great effect, as her mother refused to answer.

"Well, then. This can all wait, after all, you've got a party planned for this one's birthday!" Caroline laughed, and jiggled Iris's face a little, making the girl a little dizzy.

I sighed and leaned my head back, leaving them to their banter, as the spells I'd cast were tiring me out again. I drifted off, slumping into Caroline's lap, and sighed in contentment as I fell asleep.

A brief moment of vague consciousness came to me as Caroline carried me into a bedroom, laying us down on a soft pillow the size of a mattress, before my mind slipped back into the shadows, and dreams of walking through Athens' streets with my girls, one of our Little Adventures.

—

Finding things to do in this city was actually rather easy, and fun. Caroline and I toured several different houses of pleasure, watching the girls dance, then found our way into the alcohol scene.

I had been afraid that the mirroring of this country to other desert societies would mean their prohibition of alcohol would carry over, but it seemed the opposite was true. This nation was famous for its wines and other alcohols, as apparently there were dozens of species' of grapes and wheat that grew underground, here.

We bumped into Kyrew at one of the wine tastings, and she decided to give us an 'Insider's Tour', which included the back room of her family's ale brewery.

"And this is the distillery, where we turn the finest of parschtgräs into a beautiful high-purity alcohol, very strong, we usually mix it with other things." She chuckled, moving past the massive vat.

I smelled it, and chuckled. "Vodka. Nice. And Parschtgräs would be potatoes?" I asked Kyrew.

"I believe that's another name for it, yes." She nodded, and then paused, raising her nose. "That's odd... I shouldn't smell- oh hell someone's broken a cask." She groaned, and started towards the back of the factory.

We found not a single broken cask, but rather an entire isle, destroyed and electrified by a large group of creatures curled up in the middle, the appearance of which made her gasp and freeze.

Each seemed about 30 feet long, with twelve legs, and no wings, but other than that, seemed identical in coloration and bone structure to a blue dragon, and each smelled of ozone, so it was safe to say that these were the 'Fulminating Cave Crawlers' or The Behir, Whatever their name was.

"Calm down, we'll handle them... but if they're here... what's up north?" I pondered, and then threw my spear into the middle of them, activating one of the Runes, the 'Ice' Rune.

We watched as spikes of ice exploded out from the center of them, impaling many of them fatally, though I quickly realized I'd underestimated their number, as the pile shifted, and revealed the pit they were laying on, filled with more of them.

"And that's why you don't attack Behir in their lair's... they sleep in massive colony's, but they hunt alone." Kyrew breathed deeply, and then conjured some flame on her hands, before I stopped her.

"We're surrounded by explosives!!! No fire, please!!!" I said quickly.

She switched spells, growling, and instead a swirling ball of ice and snow shot towards the writhing mass as a few began to claw their ways out from underneath the spiky ball of ice I'd essentially sealed them in with.

Caroline hummed, impressed, as the ball shredded through three of the smaller creatures, leaving a noticeable crater in the pit... for a full second, before more writhing bodies pushed upwards.

"How many are in the average colony?" I asked quickly.

"Uhm... maybe 100?" She shivered.

Caroline nodded and pulled out a greatsword and a shield, twirling the greatsword as a one-handed weapon because of her giant size and strength. "Well then! This'll take quite a while! I expect to be paid for my time, Kyrew!" She laughed wildly, and dove into the writhing mass, swinging her sword and summoning her stone-skin just in time, as four of them spat lightning at her.

It cracked her armor slightly, but did no discernible damage, which made me laugh. "You crazy brat! Now hold still!" I activated my staff again, right next to her, and cast the Cloak of Lightning, reversing the polarity of the air around us, and negating their lightning abilities, just like with the baby dragons.

They tried several times, but then resorted to biting, which she did not appreciate at all, smashing through several of them with a sharp edge of her shield and then stabbing another in the chest with the sword.

I nodded and leapt forward, landing on her shoulders lithely, and grabbed my spear. "Sorry honey, can you stand still for a moment? This might sting!" I chuckled at her casual shrug, and then opened my grimoire, casting 'Winter Storm', and freezing the entire pit with the spell. Everything within a 30ft radius of me was frozen nearly solid, but luckily my lover was touching me, and was therefore spared.

The icy surface cracked, and a much bigger set of Behir climbed out, hissing savagely. I leapt off my lover, throwing my spear down one of their throats, as she charged the others with her shield in front of her. The spear halted its descent halfway down, then simply swung in a full clockwise circle, cutting the beast's head off.

Kyrew threw a giant shard of glowing crystal from the ceiling into another of the beast's brains like a falling stalactite, impaling it to the ground. "Hey, if we're doing this, might as well make it look cool." She shrugged when I looked at her incredulously.

Caroline laughed and stabbed another to death, taking a swipe across one leg which managed to make her bleed. "Damn. These little bastards are fast, for as big as they are." She commented.

I cast a quick healing spell on her leg, halting the bleeding, then sank the spear beneath the ice, shattering it and piercing the hearts of all the 'dead', in an effort to stop us from being ambushed by a seemingly dead opponent, or someone from under the ice, also moving the dead enemies out of the pit, to create room to fight.

Caroline leapt down into the new level of the pit, and growled when the large number that remained scampered down further, dwindling and then disappearing through a small set of bolt holes in the ground.

Kyrew whistled softly. "Well, we didn't kill them all, but retreating is good, we can set traps for when they try to come back, or just flood the tunnels, like usual. They can't swim, after all, and they drown very quickly." She nodded.

"Good to know..." Caroline nodded, examining the holes, each about six feet tall in a near-perfect Circle. "I hate Burrowing creatures..." she sighed.

I began throwing the corpses into the Freezer in the Vault, for the scholars to study, and then searching for living ones, and tranquilizing them. The spiky ball of ice melted eventually, as did the rest, leaving us standing in the middle of a massive egg clutch, soaked in blood.

"Well... that's interesting." I nodded, and collected the eggs, one by one, carefully, with Caroline and Kyrew helping. The mound of earth in the center confused me, and I looked at Kyrew. "Is that normal?"

"Yes, it is. They apparently get nostalgic for their mothers, when they create these piles, so they create something to cling to. Sad thought, really, until you realize they're cannibals, and they ate her." She shrugged.

"Gross." I frowned, and cracked open the mound, finding the bones of a much larger creature, but the same structure as the smaller ones. "I take it this is the Matron?"

"The Old Matron, Yes... there's obviously a new one, seeing as there's fresh eggs here. All those Behir were male. Females are eaten by the Matron or cast out. Like hyena's, actually." She nodded.

"Alright, so we need to kill the Matron, and the males will die out on their own?" I nodded.

"Correct... well, most likely, unless they find a wandering female." She sighed and looked at the damage done to the brewery, this whole portion trashed. "A shame they didn't try to eat the wine... it's poisonous to them." She muttered.

I blinked. "Really? Why?"

"Something about Alcohol screws with their brains, knocks them out. Too much and they don't wake up." She grinned savagely, and then tipped a cask of ale towards one of the bolt holes, ripping the cork out and casting a small spell. The ale immediately turned to mist, and slipped into the tunnel, slithering like a living creature.

"And the purpose of that? It won't actually knock them out that way, will it?" I asked.

"It might... but where the mist tracks will tell us where their tunnels go. It's a mapping spell made specifically for dangerous tunnels. The added bonus of possibly knocking some Behir out is nice, though." She explained calmly, and then took a drink from one of the bottles of Vodka that wasn't smashed. "Was supposed to be a relaxing day of booze and fun... but noooooo~." She muttered sarcastically.

I laughed softly, and sat with Caroline next to her. "Yeah, I feel that. But relaxation is always less fun than a little bit of excitement, eh?"

She shook her head. "I'm 94 years old. I like boring. I'm a tiefling woman who isn't a politician, I've never liked excitement. I prefer to sit and read my books and learn my magic and maybe, just maybe, raise my son to be a proper adult without the intervention of my incessantly nosy family, who always think they know how to raise him better than me."

I snorted. "My father tried that with my children. Tried to raise them to be like him. I put him in his place squarely one good time, and raised them the way I saw fit. They are MY children, and therefore I decide the way they're raised. Keep that mentality, and you can still have them in your life, without them interfering." I explained.

She raised an eyebrow. "And how do you put an ancient sorceress who happens to be your mother in her place?"

"The Same you would anyone else. If they want to fuck with your children, it means war. And nothing is more dangerous than a parent going to war for their child." I said stubbornly.

She hummed. "Perhaps. But still, I think we should call the guards. This is technically a breach in the city's defenses."

"Aren't they going to come investigate the loud noises? Also where did your employees go?" I asked, looking at the rest of the warehouse/factory behind us.

"I don't blame them for abandoning the place, they're not warriors... I'll call the guard." She sighed, and went outside, whistling sharply. The sound was muffled and distorted severely, and I realized the answer to my own question; the warehouse was soundproofed, so it didn't cause disturbance to the city.

A few minutes later, a host of twenty guards flooded in, examining the hole, the tunnels, and the blood splatter signs of the battle.

Kyrew came back in, and nodded. "I'm having them search every building, every entrance and exit, and every tunnel system in the city, for any more... uninvited guests."

A few of the guards went down each hole, after she gave them a piece of paper with a map drawn on it. I read it, and hummed at the intricate series of pathways under and around the city, interrupted by a long, jagged tunnel that was clearly the less planned of the two sets. "Coming from north-west... good to know... well, I'm sure the guards have this handled for now, so we'll be on our way." I nodded and tucked my spear away into the vault.

After a moment, I looked inside, and found the dwarves I'd hired to handle the stuff my family put into the vault; tanning hides with magic, preserving trophies, gathering ingredients, so on, etc.

"Wait, you're just going to leave?" One of the guards asked incredulously.

"Well... yes? We don't have permission to do anything else. The laws of the land clearly state that any such hunting or extermination must be sanctioned by an authority figure, and by someone with a proper license. We have the licenses, as a Guild, but not the contract; therefore if we did anything more than this, we would be committing the crime of vigilantism." I explained calmly.

They looked at each other, then at Kyrew. "What is he talking about, Lady Rashan?" One of them asked.

"The laws of Guild Intervention, and he's correct... one of you tell the Regent that we need a contract for the Clock Warden Guild, to hunt down the Behir that are invading our city, and whatever is driving them south in such numbers." She sighed.

I shrugged and slipped an arm around Caroline's waist, pulling her away. "Is your leg okay?" I asked quietly, poking the rip in her leggings.

She shrugged. "Barely stung, really. I felt like I was taking damage, when the stones on my skin cracked and shattered, but it didn't make me bleed. It was weird." She hummed, eying the new scar that had made itself on her thigh.

"Well, I'm glad that's the only wound you received! Honestly, diving in there with a shield and sword! Who do you think you are, Arthur? Use your guns you silly woman!" I snapped at her, annoyed with her recklessness.

She smiled and kissed me deeply. "Yes, well, then I would have blown the place sky-high, so maybe that wouldn't be advisable? Let's get back to the girls, honey, there's more work to be done here than we thought."

I sighed, and nodded, pulling her back towards the Estate. "I just hope they haven't burnt the place down." I muttered, and she brayed with laughter, agreeing with me tearfully.