Fantasy Cursed Island

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle tilted her head. "You came from the surface? What was it like?"

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Hmm," Urodor paused to think about that, "I was very young when I was there last... it was quiet, no one harassed the wyrmbloods, our lineage was still strong."

"Haven't seen a dragon until I came into the ruins," Jerry shrugged, "Never met one that talked before today, either."

"That is because I am not a true dragon," Urodor explained, "My blood is not so pure, unfortunately. But it flows strong in any case, as it does in you and your little one." He smiled at Shuffle, and looked at Jerry, "Which species of beastfolk was her father?" Jerry spit out a mouthful of water.

"What? You think she's my... No!"

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle tilted her head, visibly confused. "What's a father?"

 

[Deadwood Deer]

That gave Urodor pause, "Your mother never told you of your father?", he looked at Jerry.

"I'm not her mother, for the second time."

"I misunderstood, then."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle understood mother, at least. "Oh, Jerry hasn't made any eggs." Sort of.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

There was a moment of silence as Shuffle got a look of confusion from Urodor and disgust from Jerry. "Shuffle, your upper lip and your bottom lip need to meet and become friends," Jerry said in an attempt to tell Shuffle to shut the hell up without saying "Shuffle shut the fuck up!"

"Yes, perhaps you should not speak of adult subjects..." Urodor agreed cautiously. Deciding to switch subjects, "Jeri, why do you hide your scales under that cloak?"

"That's my business."

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle just looked confused. She didn't know what made a subject "adult," nor did she understand what she'd said wrong. She crossed her arms on the ground in front of herself and rested her head on them, watching as they kept talking.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Jerry and the tollkeeper went back and forth for a few minutes about Jerry's scales. Urodor trying to convince Jerry that there was nothing wrong with having shiny scales and Jerry attempting to brush it off and move on. Eventually, the rogue relented and took her cloak off, and the next thing out of Urodor's mouth was "By what accident did you lose your wings?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle flicked her ears before lifting a leg to scratch one of them. “I thought me and Fia asked a lot of questions...”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Welcome to my world," Jerry replied out of the corner of her mouth. "I never had wings, I'm being turned into this."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, that until recently I was human, and then I came here and the entire world has become determined to screw me over in the worst ways possible. Now I have a tail and scales, and they hurt coming out!"

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle nodded. “Growing new parts hurts, but you had it worse because they grew slowly.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Urodor frowned, he seemed to be trying to process that. "Yet you are clearly dragonewt?"

"No, I'm mid transformation. At the rate it's been going, if it continues, tomorrow my feet are gonna start changing," Jerry shook her head. "You use transformation magic, it's the same thing, mine's just permanent."

"This?", Urodor pointed to the badge on his cloak. "This allows me to suppress the human in my blood and lean fully into my draconic nature. I suppress a side of myself, I was born a dragonewt, I do not believe it is possible to be turned into one."

 

[Fangs9090]

“She absorbed a dragon’s soul on accident. That’s what I understand of it, anyway.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

You could have heard a record screech, if gramaphones had been invented yet. "You what?"

"It was undead, we didn't think the soul had remained in the shattered phylactery," Jerry explained, "And somehow it did, a piece anyway, and it latched onto me, and now this is happening." Jerry pointed to her clawed hand, where the scales were starting to reach further up her forearm, and to her tail. "We don't know why the scales are blue, though, you're the first dragon we've found down here that's not red or green." Urodor was quiet for a bit after that.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle spoke up. "When I grow new parts, they're colored to fit with the rest of me. The dragons weren't purple either." She looked back at her wings.

Asta spoke up from where he lay. "If it's any comfort, I think the color looks nice."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Thank you, Asta," Jerry smiled at the chimera and gave him a scritch.

After some more silence from their host, Urodor began distributing the result of his cooking, some kind of vegetable stew. It was a bit tough, possibly a combination of not usually cooking for other people and not being properly equipped to cook for more than one person, but it was edible and most of the flavor was still there. Considering he had to cook it in multiple batches and hope the fire could keep the individual pots warm, it was a solid effort. Some of the party was rather hesitant to eat, considering the hostility with the host, but others either did not care or had not eaten yet today, and promptly dug in. It definitely wasn't as good as Joanne or Adran's cooking, but it wasn't bad.

Urodor, took a seat near Jerry and Shuffle, the two he was even willing to converse with as everyone began eating.

 

[Fangs9090]

Shuffle sat up as the food was being passed about. She wasn't a picky eater, so she dug in, helping Fia eat as she sat next to her. Erina had eaten worse things, and she'd been smelling it for a while, so she didn't hesitate much before eating. Emil was just glad it wasn't meat. That would've been awkward if he'd had to decline the food.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

During the meal, there were attempts at small talk amongst the group. Adran and Emfa weren't took keen on discussion at all, keeping their eyes on the Tollkeeper and looking for an excuse to drop a demon on him and cut him in half, respectively. The elf did find something interesting going on, however, in the way that Urodor tried to interact with the rogue. Joanne could see it too, depending on Emil's experience with witnessing attempts at romance, and Fia's experience, they could each pick up on what Urodor was trying to accomplish with his attempts at small talk with Jerry. Asta, being right up on what was happening, could also possibly interpret Urodor was trying to flirt. He wasn't very successful, he had a worse track record than Adran and Jerry didn't even seem to realize he was trying to flirt.

"Well, I'll give him credit for trying," Adran muttered, shaking his head.

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil raised an eyebrow, but he figured that was what had kept them alive so far. They may as well take what they could get. Asta picked up on it before long, at which point he started watching the tollkeeper more intently, while also scooting closer to Jerry. She didn't seem receptive, so Asta didn't see a reason to act, yet. If this tollkeeper started making more overt moves, they might have a problem.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

The tollkeeper did not actually make a more serious move than trying to get Jerry to open up and tell him about herself, trying with his own stories about how he'd ended up in the ruins. Apparently he'd gotten trapped in here when he was a young man seeking to claim his own hoard. He'd settled down here in the lower third of the ruins since the monsters were rare enough that by then he could recover in between attacks, although by now he had little to fear from them. If he ever returned to the surface he would probably be completely unable to function with modern society.

"Wait, how long ago was that?"

"Oh, something like.... you know I stopped keeping track a few months in."

 

[Fangs9090]

Fia glanced over. "Keeping track of time is hard..."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Without a sun or moon," Joanne agreed, "It is difficult to track the passage of time. We have only been able to keep track of how many times we have slept, we are not certain how long it has been since we entered."

"I can't have been in these ruins more than two months," Jerry replied, "I've been making a tick mark on my map book every time we camp. There's only fifty-seven ticks."

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil nodded. "I think my former group and I entered a week or two before you arrived. I hadn't been on my own for long when we met."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Hmm..." Urodor nodded, "So you did not enter all as one group?"

"Gods no!", Jerry laughed, "I came in on my own, found Shuffle, Joanne almost killed us, Beri almost killed me, we practically tripped over Emil," she waved it off, "The group size just keeps expanding."

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil nodded again. "Strength in numbers, as they say. I doubt any of us would have gotten this far without the others."