Outcast

I crawl over to the side with the overseer, giving Vanor a moment, for me, this skeleton saved my life, it represents freedom and power.

For him, all it represents is his son's death, something still bugs me though, why there were swords stabbed into him, were they there to throw anyone off if they found the body? I guess its a mystery for now.

Taking this opportunity, I decided to check out my old den. Crawling over, I hear a small noise coming from inside the small den. Smelling the air, I figure out who is inside.

"You can come out, I'm not here to hurt you," I say, saddened by who is inside.

Nothing happens for several minutes, then I see a small head poke itself out, she gets a small look at me, freaks out and hides back inside again.

"What did you find?" asks Vanor, crawling next to me, his face back to its unreadable self.

"The latest sacrifice, she found my old den. Probably found the leftovers of the rats I had left here as well. Seems relatively aware, and smart too" I answer back, before taking out a beast corpse, and setting it at the entrance of the den.

Immediately, she pokes her head back out. Staring at the corpse with an almost palpable hunger.

"Go ahead, it's for you. I remember how hungry I was when I was down here" I say.

She immediately starts tearing into the body, and I finally get my first good look at her.

Painfully skinny, little over 2 feet long, with dull red fangs, blue, and grey scales, a deformed back leg, and red horns. I turn to look at Vanor and see that he see the same thing I am. She has a mutated bloodline, mixing storm dragon, and bloody fang dragon lineages.

"Selena would be cursing her subordinates thousand times over for missing her," says Vanor.

"Hey, little one, what's your name?" I ask.

She stops eating and stares at Vanor, and me. Deciding if she can trust us, after studying us for a minute or so, she says "Dahlia" before eating again.

I can see her dragon core going into overtime as it starts pumping out large amounts of dragon blood to fix her deficiencies. Almost like clockwork, she passes out.

I pick her up carefully and place her on my back, before turning towards the overseer who had watched the entire exchange.

"Go get the rest of the thinbloods, bring them here" I order.

"General... there are over 20 that I know of, what will my clan do once you take them?"

I hit him with my tail, knocking him onto his back, before snarling at him.

"Don't f.u.c.k.i.n.g question me, just do it cripple"

"Yes General, sorry General," he says, before limping away.

"You plan to take them all with you?" asks Vanor.

"Yeah, I'm gonna try to hire the Thousand Feather clan to help take them to the Crimson Flame. We have lost a lot of the younger members of our tribe, and I want to make sure the thinbloods here are taken care of" I say as we wait for the overseer to return.

Doing a little more exploring, I find the tunnel I made to escape. I laugh as I realize I don't even fit anymore in the tunnel.

After two hours, the overseer comes back with 18 small thinbloods trailing behind him. Looking them over, I see nearly all are deformed, starving, or injured.

"These are all of them?" I ask.

"Yes General, I went to all the active tunnels, you can ask them, this is all of them," he said, trying to placate me.

As I crawl over towards the overseer, Vanor asks me.

"Valoris, you know how to get is out of here right?"

"Of course, I memorized it as we came down" I answer, stopping in front of the overseer.

"General please dont worry, I can get us out of he-ugk...." He starts to say before I rip his throat out.

He collapses, falling unconscious and bleeding to death. The thinbloods watching smile, and laugh at his death.

I turn towards them, smile and say.

"I'm going to have you all come with me, we are going to go to a place far away from here, where you can all get stronger" before guiding everyone through the mine, back to the entrance.

Vasuki and Manasa are waiting for us, He is smiling, looking at the small thinbloods trailing behind. He does the same thing I did when I saw them, looking them over to see if there are any that we know. There aren't any, which is sadly not surprising.

The life expectancy of a thinblood in the mines is very short, he and I were the exception to the rule.

"Good, you had the same thought I did, did you find our old "friend"?" he asks.

"All taken care of," I say, grinning.