A New Kingdom — Dragon’s Bane #1
A king summons a group of adventurers to offer a quest but our heroes are met with an unexpected roadblock
The door was locked. Of course, it was locked. An Amazonian-looking woman banged on the door. On one side of her, a pint-sized redhead leaned against the adjacent wall examining her nails. On the other side, a sharply dressed, a blue-eyed blonde man stood with his arms crossed as if on his guard but took a moment to push his glasses farther up his nose.
“Tristan! We know you’re in there!” The large golden-brown woman said, now folding her arms to wait for the man inside. Her face had fallen into the state of an irritated scowl.
With her level, brown-eyed gaze still fixed on her nails, the redhead calmly stated, “Poppy, you realize he’s probably still hungover from the festival last night, right?”
“Good point,” Poppy murmured. She banged on the door once more. “Tristan if you don’t open up, we’re breaking in!”
At this point, Luka had begun to chuckle. “This can go one of three ways,” he chimed in, loud enough for Tristan to hear on the other side of the door. “You can take the easy route, and open the door yourself. Or, the two other options would be Poppy kicking your door in — which, of course, you would be the one paying the repair cost on — or we’re going to get Cassia to break in and drag you out.” Then he paused, a mischievous smirk crossing his lips. “You don’t need me to come in there and use my healing hands on you, do you?” he added as a taunt, glancing over to Cassia and giving her a playful wink. They all knew well that Tristan hated jokes like that.
There was some shuffling on the other side of the door, but the trio was soon met with more silence. The door still remained closed and locked.
“Do we really even need the wizard? We’ve already got a cleric,” Luka said quietly, pointing to himself.
Poppy shook her head in agitation. “That’s it!” she declared.
She took a step back and laid a Sparta kick into the door. Unfortunately, it did not have the result everyone had expected out of a bodybuilder's kick. She hopped up and down holding her foot and yipped like an injured animal. A male’s muffled laughter could be heard from somewhere on the other side.
Sighing, Cassia stepped away from the wall and toward the door. “Give me a moment,” she said quietly, sliding a lockpick out of her pocket.
“Uh, do you always have that on you?” Luka whispered in mild concern.
“Yes,” Cassia said simply while working to unlock the door. Somewhere behind her, Poppy was chuckling.
The click came, and Cassia grinned in defiance. Gently to avoid any unwanted creaks, she pushed the door open. The room was dark and smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and stale ale. Her freckled nose crinkled slightly, but she entered regardless. Her footfalls were silent and she soon disappeared entirely to the companions behind her. At least, until they heard a crash and a painful yowl out of Tristan. This was followed by another sound of struggling, and then Tristan yelling once more.
“What is the meaning of this?! What is the point of knocking if you’re just going to let yourself in any way? I thought I locked that bloody door!”
Nonchalantly, Cassia exited the room whilst dragging Tristan out by one of his ankles. He was still fully dressed from the night before, parts of his deep tan skin were revealed through his clothes as they bunched up from being dragged, and his dark brown hair was a disheveled mess. Luka and Poppy burst out laughing at the sight. Cassia was easily the smallest of the four of them, and Tristan was the second-largest. It was a hilarious spectacle, to say the least.
“Here, let me get that for you, little lady,” Poppy said before picking Tristan up and throwing him over her shoulder. “I told you you couldn’t out-drink me, Tristan.” Tristan merely groaned in response.
Luka momentarily disappeared into the room and came back out with Tristan’s belongings. They began to walk to the exit of the inn, not bothering to shut the room’s door.
“You lot had better have a good reason for this,” Tristan said, fixing his black eyes on Cassia as he spoke.
Not even bothering to glance in his general direction, Cassia smirked. His attempts at being intimidating were horrible on a normal day — even with the use of his magic — but in that very moment? It was laughable.
“The King of Luugner has requested an audience with us,” Luka said. “His squire mentioned a quest and a high reward for its completion.”
Tristan shut right up after the explanation and idly attempted fixing his hair with his hands. They approached the carriage waiting for them out front, and after Poppy threw Tristan inside, the rest of them climbed in behind him. After a small jerking of the carriage, they were set in motion, headed toward the castle. The journey wouldn’t take long, perhaps all of twenty minutes, but they rode in silence. At least, apart from Tristan’s occasional grumbling about a headache.
“Need me to use my healing hands on you?” Luka asked, giving his fingers a wiggle. Tristan rolled his eyes in agitation.
Only halfway through their ride, they heard a sudden cacophony of yells, screams, and a distant roar. The horses pulling the carriage were spooked by something and went berserk, rearing up then running about wildly. The coachman was thrown out of his seat, the carriage was tipped and smashed into the side of a nearby building. The four passengers were thrown about inside of it and came to a crashing halt as they all fell on top of each other. Ironically Poppy, the largest of the group, was the one on top of the doggy pile.
“U-ugh, can’t breathe — ” Luka struggled from somewhere beneath all of them. There was a shuffle and a crunching of gear and armor as Poppy tried to get off of everybody, but the carriage being tipped onto its side made this both difficult and awkward. She eventually managed to stand, and pulled herself up and out through the door over their heads.
“I’ll help you all out,” Poppy called in. “Don’t forget your gear, we’re going to need it.”
Cassia was next up. Nimbly she stood, not exactly caring that one of her feet had landed on Tristan. She gave her neck a crack, made certain that all her belongings were intact, then hopped out of the carriage without any assistance. Her movements were almost cat-like.
Tristan gave a long, agonized groan as he tried to stand up, and was eventually shoved up much quicker than he wanted by Luka who was trying to shuffle out from beneath.
“Hey, watch it!” Tristan complained.
Luka rolled his eyes as he stood, grabbed Poppy’s hand, and hoisted himself out with her assistance. Tristan stumbled up, and grabbed Poppy’s hand once it was offered again, and also pulled himself out of the wreckage.
The adventurers took a moment to look about; the two horses were long gone, the kingdom was in chaos with people scrambling about, smoke filled the air in the distance and the roars had grown both louder and closer. In sync they all looked up, only to see the great flying beast almost directly above their heads as it blew out another plume of flames.
“Oh, fu — ”
“RUN!” Poppy bellowed.
To be continued…
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