Chương 123: BECMI Chapter 122 – Fiery Food leads to Fond Farewells

"My apologies, Mistress. He was taunting us most flagrantly," sniffed Cirruluxul, waiting at the side as immense steaks carved from the flanks of the red dragon sizzled above flames that looked a great deal like seething layers of voltage… which naturally was exactly what they were. You didn't cook red dragons with heat, they were immune to fire!

"I see your little tussle generated some interest out there?" I asked with a glance to the west, where more dragons, spots of color and darkness in the evening sky, seemed to be lazily gliding about with more than normal intent. Cirru lazily flicked an ear in that direction.

"They are calling out more challenges to a foreign intruder, and perhaps shouting for an elder to come and intervene, dare the protection of the tower, insulting me as a slave and sell-out to the humans, and so forth and so on."

"You're keeping your calm well. Jeeves, how's the meat coming?" My Improved Phantom Servant raised a ghostly set of skeletal carpals in an 'OK' gesture, while the archmage Daffid looked on in bemusement.

"Red dragon flesh has a uniquely spicy heat to it, if you've never eaten it. The spices you treat it with have to have a cold and icy nature to them to moderate the effect, or it can cause a severe amount of heartburn. Done right, however, it is an enjoyable if somewhat intense effect, at least for humans, hyn, and dwarves. For elves, it is quite overpowering, unfortunately, and we can only use the sauce on some lighter leavings."

My Disk came spinning out of my sleeve, lotused out into a flat table, and I quickly spread out the fixings there, also Shaping up two massive bowls, with Cirru's twice as large as Duum, as he wasn't exactly an omnivore.

"You… are preparing a dinner of dragon?" Daffid rubbed his thick red hair at the idea.

"She will I temize up the rest of the meat and serve the rest of the Company a fire-breathing feast fit for a king! Do we get to try Combicha Two this time, mistress?" Cirru asked eagerly.

"I will prepare a sample of Combicha Two for you, but I'm afraid the rest of us will have to stick with One and ordinary leavings." Multiple heads of various types of lettuce plopped down in front of me, and a Force Reserve blade coalesced around my hand. I began chopping, even as various tomatoes tumbled out of my sleeves to join them, along with peppers, cheeses, olives, mushrooms, and jars of refried beans already made, everything bright and colorful.

"This is going to be quite the culinary experience!" the archmage spoke up, eyeing all the colors in front of us. I flicked up a Disk for a seat for him, molding it to make it obvious he should sit down.

"What is Combicha?" he asked keenly.

"A spicy-hot dish made with alchemy. It has the unique ability to be hot to whatever eats it. Elementals, angels, demons, giants, dragons, it doesn't matter. You eat Combicha to experience the Burn, as well as some of the most active cooking that exists in mortaldom. You are in for a treat, Elder Daffid."

"If you don't mind, I think I may have a bottle or two of wine that can go along with this."

"My bat Duum likes a very fruity red wine, and Cirru prefers whites for some odd reason." He paused only a moment on hearing that, then nodded and hurried back inside to inspect his cellar. Dread flicked out, and Duum gently caught the head in his teeth. Healing Reserve flared quickly over my Bat, taking care of the rips and tears in his hide and wings. When he let go, I spun it sideways, and Cirru stopped it with her nose, letting the energies crawl over her somewhat deeper and more extensive injuries.

"Half the gold from selling the parts to your hoard," I stated unequivocally, earning an ear-flicker of acknowledgment.

"Or in similar value in trade, if we make something from them. Perhaps you might think of making a set of barding for yourself out of its hide." Cirru cocked her head sideways and considered the corpse of the red dragon that was half again her size.

"It will only be good up until my next dragonsleep," she observed shrewdly.

"My next time will be a major growth, Mistress."

"That is true. Perhaps Duum would like a new suit he can show off if we go up against fire-dwellers in the future." Duum promptly struck a pose, which looked rather patently ridiculous with the monocle in his eye. Archmage Daffid came out just in time to see it, two bottles of wine in each hand, and for a moment just stared in befuddlement at the sight of the giant bat treating his black and crimson wing like a sweeping cloak.

"You need a hat," the archmage blurted out, and we all turned to look at him in surprise.

"Well, he does! Those lines are too much like a suit of clothes, and he's got the posture down correctly, for all of his size." If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I hid my cough, because the tux-like design was mine, and Duum didn't have the top hat he'd acquired recently on just now. Duum just preened, while Cirru lifted her head on her long neck and moved about to give him a lookover from several angles.

"He's right. Duum needs a proper hat, Mistress," the dragon nodded sagely.

"I see." Rolling my eyes would have been very out of character, and I was in the middle of alchemical food prep, regardless.

"Well, then, a hat he shall be procuring. Cirru, you also need to acquire some appropriate attire for the Midsummer Ball that is coming up. You do have a personal wardrobe you need to start up, if you recall."

"Ah, yes, Mistress. Of course." She had a gleam of excitement in her eyes. Not much of the gold from what we were going to sell was going to make it to her bed of coins, but a good wardrobe was another kind of hoard…

It was a good evening meal, all things told. Archmage Daffid drank half a gallon of milk with great enthusiasm, actually spewing out flames after eating both Combicha One and a couple of truly fine red dragon steaks with icy-hot buttered potatoes and steaming mushrooms.

Duum's bowl was finely-chopped red dragon filets and a rack of long ribs in a minty mushrooms and some really fortified wine sauce, which had him hiccuping and staggering in a combination of hot, cold, and drunken enjoyment at the melange of flavors exploding over his long tongue. I had to support the gallon of ice cold milk he sucked down in the end as he drank it, unable to endure the heat.

Cirru got both the Combicha Two she so wanted to try, and after she broke down and begged for the milk to ease the Burn, had a salad bigger than everything everyone else ate put together. She was shocked how much she enjoyed it. Archmage Daffid proclaimed it the finest culinary experience he'd ever enjoyed, topping off a full day of magical discourse that extended further into the wee hours, Cirru joining in and Duum listening in as things went on well into the night.

"The dragons are going to be looking to you to cause trouble. Will you be alright, Lady Edge?" Daffid the Red asked me as I swung aboard Duum the next morning, fine and ready to go after a couple hours of meditation and Greeting the Morning.

"Elder Daffid, it would be entirely inappropriate for us to not introduce ourselves to the local dragon clans in a manner commensurate with the displays of territorial aggression they've been putting on for us, encouraging us to come to discuss our rights to fly in this area of the world," I replied calmly, earning a proper snort of defiant support from Cirru.

"Given we are short of funds, and dragons are rather valuable living or dead, I expect some will end up dead in short order, and the rest will either learn their lesson, or end up dead in longer order." He could only shake his head and smile at my confidence in how things were going to end up.

"If the Khirifi are dead, I rather don't think the dragons themselves are going to be as much a danger as they think they are. I don't know how many elder dragons live in the Wyrmroosts, but there are at least a dozen major clans of them, largely blue, red, and whites. I've learned that polite discussion is a bit wasted on them, seen as a sign of weakness. Either make demands of them and show no fear while displaying strength, or you become potential prey."

Cirru was already drawn up and ready to go, and just nodded.

"That is the way of dragons," she acknowledged unapologetically.

"They will learn not to trifle with Mistress rather quickly, I think." Her tail switched excitedly, eager to see what was going to happen very shortly. There was a damn reason she was still serving me, after all, and if those dragons out there wanted to curse and insult her for weakness for being subjugated by an elf, well, they were about to learn first-hand that surrendering was far, far preferable to what was about to happen to them!

When Mistress finished Buffing up herself and Duum, that surprise was going to be tripled in its intensity. Things, things were about to get exciting!

The White, or Ice, Dragon was an old member of the species, having seen a century of life and aging towards the final steps of growing into an elder of the species. It was pretty confident of being able to take on an underage Blue, a giant Bat, and the elf riding them. It never got close to us. I didn't want to ruin its hide and meat and so I didn't use flames on it, but I didn't have to.

Twenty-two Skulls riding Thorns drove into it, impaled it, and the Kickers blew through its heart and brain, taking care of both its animal frenzy and its eagerness to fight at the same time. The carcass never reached the ground. I Featherweighted it, Force Reserved three Disks into place to catch it as it dropped, and then Itemized it once it was splayed across all three Disks to save time and room, as we weren't going to butcher it properly while we were flying into the Valley of the Ancients.

The dragons in the distance saw this one die, but it didn't dissuade them, as each clan seemed to consider it a proper challenge and insult to be answered, as well as a test of control of the airspace and their dominance of it. Three dead Blue siblings in one attack, and a mated pair of Reds in one more, and the local dragons backed off a bit and gave us room, deciding that maybe testing out the interlopers was something they should leave to the elder dragons.

The wyrms might bestir themselves to bother us, but they hadn't yet and didn't seem like they wanted to interrupt their beauty sleep to deal with an elfin who could one-shot their children so swiftly and efficiently. So it was that we soared above the rings of hills that surrounded the valley where the FS Barhund had crash-landed, a high mountain plateau of scrub and rather desolate rockly plains. We could see it from miles away even as we came down.

The dragon presence inside the valley there rapidly trailed off, probably because of all the shiny white and metal things on careful and constant patrols around the shining silver thing in the distance that was probably the Palace of the Gods. One crashed starship, coming up!