Aqua was more distracted than I thought by her self appointed task of building a brewery in which humans could process Strananas and produce fruit liqueur out of them, something which I only found out through Stephen, is actually not the same thing as Liquor.

  It gave me several days to flee and get as far away as I could, crossing an entire deserted land that bore the signs of having recently been home to a large settlement of which only ruins remained.

  "This looks very suspicious!"

  I'm surprised. "This one wasn't you?"

  "No no, this one wasn't us, I'm sure of that," she began to float down towards the ruins, and I followed her. "I don't remember having come this far out, and this doesn't seem like a slaver encampment, this looks like a proper village..."

  Of course, I could see them from the sky, but as we got closer, immediately I could tell the buildings hadn't been destroyed by any sort of normal means that humans had access to.

  Unless there were humans running around here with massive hooked swords, these seem like they've been destroyed by claws.

  A tumbleweed passed by what I assume had once been the road that ran down the middle of the village, no doubt a trade route that the village was built around, passing beside the small pond that served as the village's water source... I didn't need to be Aqua to realize, that pond was incredibly deep.

  Wonder if anyone's ever tried to dive into it. Thoughts of humans doing dangerous things like putting on scuba gear and going cave diving in this place made me genuinely consider sealing it off... but I guess that would be unfair to anyone that would settle in these lands.

  That said as I distracted myself with the pond, it seemed like my Priestess had actually touched down on the village, so I followed her down.

  "I think I know these people," she mused openly, speaking out loud, perhaps thinking I needed her to be loud to hear. "Yes - these symbols," she came close to one of the few walls I could see that was still standing, mostly. There was mostly just burnt wood, debris and mud brick houses everywhere. "This method of construction too, sandstone and mudbrick... These people are definitely the Sand Behind The Ears tribe!"

  Uh huh.

  "I see... so friend or foe?" I asked.

  "Friends! Trade partners even!" she said. "How strange - there are no corpses, but there was obviously a battle, there are still signs that whoever lived here left in a hurry."

  I hummed as she stepped past the upright wall by walking around it, and then crouched besides the rocks, wood and other such debris, throwing them around like they were made out of foam and sticks instead of strong wooden beams, bricks or sandstone, until she revealed a whole load of torn up and burned fabric.

  "Aha! See, if they weren't in a hurry, they would've taken everything, not left perfectly good fabric behind!"

  "And also if they had just left probably they wouldn't have burned things either?" I posited. "So maybe some bandits attacked them?"

  "I don't think so," she pointed out, her wings flapped as she stood back up, she whipped her tail and caused a little dust storm, she raised her finger and wagged it in the air, before pointing at a building. "That is not something a human can do!" she pointed out, as she gestured towards a wall that had been slashed in half with some sort of bladed weapon. "A human would need several hours with a saw to get even close, and it wouldn't be that uneven and rough!"

  I hummed. "So then, what do you think caused this?"

  She turned to me as I touched down, and then got close enough to my front claws, that she could grab one. She crouched and observed it. "Could it have been a dragon like the Great One?"

  Well... "Maybe Stephen passed by here and destroyed the place before he came to us?"

  Watching her trying to pronounce Stephen's name was actually kind of cute. "Lord Stephen would undoubtedly have the cutting power to slice these buildings, but, then where are the people? Also Lord Stephen, I am fairly certain, would not have come from this direction."

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  I hummed. She was really getting into it, as she lifted herself on her wings and glided her way to a nearby house's ruins, and circled around it in flight, only stopping when she seemed to find where the entrance would've been based on what remained of the foundations and walls.

  "There aren't any corpses around, not even an old person - I can't even sense people buried here," she muttered, her wings beating as she floated above the house and looked around. "Based on the size of this settlement and the fact that the homes are permanent, I would estimate a couple dozen, maybe even a hundred people lived here, but not even a single person remains..."

  "Maybe they buried their dead elsewhere?"

  Every culture had their own way of dealing with their dead, and in fact in Argentum as we'd started bringing more and more people from other tribes into the fold, we had a whole bunch of different customs, which I enforced respect of via means of fuck you I'm a dragon you do what I say.

  "It is possible, but, if they'd been attacked by something... wouldn't there be blood? Bits and pieces of clothing? Bodies of the Dead?" she asked. "The buildings themselves are destroyed, there's evidence people left things that normally wouldn't be left behind, including personal effects," she gestured at a pile of rubble which I figure must contain something that she identified as having emotional value.

  Just looks like a bunch of poorly carved dolls to- ohhh right yeah of course I'm an idiot.

  "So you're suggesting someone must've taken them?"

  "Someone," she clicked her tongue. "Not a someone. A something."

  The slightly awkward phrasing didn't really matter, the idea got across. "You think some sort of intelligent monster came through here and took all the people?"

  "Yes, Great One! A most ferocious creature! One with big and wicked claws!" she called. "And I think I can track it!"

  I was honestly surprised to hear that. "How so?" I asked. I raised to my full height and looked around. There were roads, which were really little more than just paths beaten into the soil by the very burdenbeasts that walked them, going out through both ends of the village, and there was the pond, but, there were few other identifying landmarks, there was a big rock that was halfway to eroding down to the south and a bunch of... was that cacti?

  Roughly in the shape of a gigantic cone too.

  "Well, there were dozens, if not a hundred, people here, right? That means there's not that many places you can go that can house that many people. The destruction of this place is fresh, so they must not have gone very far yet."

  I tilted my head. "How can you tell it's fresh?" I pressed.

  "Look here-" she gestured at one of the debris piles she had inspected. "Can you see from there, Great One, how there is no sand or dust on the rubble?"

  "I see. Very intelligent, if it had been a long time, the wind would've gotten dust on everything," I nodded at her. "So this gives us a short radius of search, but still, a pretty big radius. What else?"

  She stepped firmly on the ground and put her hands on her hips.

  "Right, so we have to shrink down where we're going. For that, the first thing we have to think about, is how our enemy left," she pointed out. "Naturally, something big enough to destroy buildings and kidnap hundreds of people would've left evidence of it, but there is none," she then raised her hands to the sky. "With no prints on the ground, we can only guess, our enemy was flying!"

  "I see, I see... but doesn't that make it almost impossible to track them?" I asked, tilting my head.

  "For others, perhaps, but with the Great Power that you have vested in me, and all the training I've done in order to understand flight... I would say, our opponent uses a different kind of flight than we do, I would presume, our opponent is a flier who hovers!"

  "Hm, did you analyze the remnants of magic in the air to find that out?" I asked.

  "Actually no," she admitted, then pointed with her hand at something up in the sky. "Actually I can just see it- right there!"

  I turned to look to where she was pointing at and, yep, there it was, flying away, slowly... It was... it was like an upside down turtle shell. It had many tendrils that were seemingly waving about, and it was bobbing along the air, seems like it was breathing and the act of exhaling was pushing air under itself to lift it in the air.

  It was also very fuzzy.

  "What am I even looking at right now..?" I muttered. "Some kind of flying furball that flies by farting..? I feel like I should destroy it on principle."

  "Great Silver One!" pleaded the Priestess, "please hold your breath!" she spoke, as she spread her wings and moved towards me, raising her arms and throwing them to each side, as she flew in front of my face, as if to prevent me from firing.

  "What? Is that creature important somehow?" I muttered.

  "No - if it took all the people here, then it is possible that they may still be alive, inside the creature!" she pointed out. "And you said it, Great One! Human lives are more precious than that, if we could save them, then we should, and then direct them to our home."

  I would've laughed, but I just exhaled out through my nose quite violently, forcing her to adapt to the strong wind. "Fair enough," I spoke, thinking about how she must finally understand that we shouldn't be so willing and ready to do dangerous things.

  "After all, the people from this village, unless I'm mistaken, are the people who make the cushions we use for your bed, Great One!"

  Okay then.

  "Alright, Priestess, we're saving them no matter what," I said, "these people have earned at least this much dedication. We won't let that creature take them and eat them."

  "Of course sir! We shall not let them be taken by that creature! After all, that is no different to them being used as human sacrifices."

  That time I did laugh. "Yes, indeed... I said no human sacrifices, dammit!"

  She flew ahead of me, and I followed. Had I not been looking at the ground while flying before, I probably would've seen that thing some time ago. As it was, we'd have to hurry and rush. If there was a chance, then, I would absolutely be taking it, and rescuing the people who made my bed!