Go Shawty, It’s Your Birthday

  “Find the Drake. He is the key.” That voice echoed in Magdelinazostrum’s mind as she opened her eyes. She still held the bundles wrapping her children. She looked around and all 5 maids were there. 3 immediately took off and searched the area around them for potential threats. They were on a large outcrop in the shadow of the peak of the largest mountain. There was a shallow cave behind them. They were approximately 400 meters above the tree line.

  Moving into the cave for concealment and shelter, Maggy moved some essence into the blankets renewing their warming and nurturing spells. As they waited for the 3 scouting maids to return, Maggy asked, “Did you hear anything just prior to integrating?”

  “About a drake and a key.” One answered.

  “No. The drake is the key. We need to find him.” corrected the other.

  “Any ideas?” Maggie asked while digging into the stone at the back of the cave creating a nook to hide the children in case she needed to fight. The two maids shrugged. “We’ll stick to the plan for now. Find an essence vein we can secure and nurture the children until it’s time. We’ll need to gather natural resources to speed their growth and maximize their potential. While searching for treasures, we need to identify hunting grounds. Once we’ve reached level 40, we can widen our search for this drake.”

  “We need to choose a new affinity too.” Joanna pointed out. The maids each had different affinities and with Maggie’s water, they represented a complete set of the basic affinities. After a bit of discussion, they decided to keep it simple and just go up one spot in the affinity chart from their current affinity to select their new one. This would give them two adults with each of the affinities.

  Maggie placed the children in the nook she had created and scratched a basic array around the children to pull in essence for them. As she finished, the scouts returned. They gave the all clear signal and shared their maps with the others. Looking at the area, she saw where one of the scouts had spotted dense essence being released from a nearby mountaintop. “Let’s take a closer look at this.” She said as she highlighted the area on her map and sent an update to the others.

  The maid that had originally found the area led the way with Maggie and another maid taking her right and left wing. As they circled down, it felt like the essence concentration was greatest on the east side of the mountain. Quickly they found a ravine that felt like it led to the source. Landing they silently proceeded on foot down into the ravine. A few minutes later, they followed the concentrated essence into a shallow cave. In the rear right corner, they felt the essence soaking out of the wall.

  Using their claws, the two maids carefully dug into the wall until they found what they were looking for. A green light glimmered out from their excavation site. They had found essence crystals. A little more digging confirmed it was a vein that continued on deep into the earth.

  Maggie once again used her claws to create an array in the stone floor to keep the essence from seeking out and attracting trouble. An hour later they had excavated a 3 meter circle around the half meter thick column of stone and crystals. On each side of the column, they hollowed out a spot for the children. Maggie finished the arrays that kept the condensed essence from escaping and the three returned to pick up the children.

  When the 6 dragons returned carrying the still tightly wrapped children, one of the maids closed the entrance to be just barely large enough for them to pass through. One maid stayed outside, concealing herself with her camouflage skill above and behind the entrance. Two maids began shaping hidden spots for guards to rest on either side of the entrance.

  Maggie carefully placed each of the bundles into the makeshift cradles they had dug in the ground. She then unwrapped the bundles and formed a nest with the blankets and placed an egg on top of each one. The children were active inside. She could sense them moving in response to the increased essence. It would not be long.

  The two maids had fashioned another hidden spot for one of the adult dragons to rest while Maggie placed the eggs. “We’ll stick with 2 hunting and seeking treasures, 1 on guard outside, and 3 in here. It will slow our leveling a bit, but we can adjust based on what we find outside. I doubt anything can threaten one of us here yet, but let’s not take any chances.” Maggie said.

  Two maids immediately exited the hide, while Maggie and the others settled in. Maggie fashioned an area for cooking meals and eating while one of the others decided to fashion a small pit that should be able to contain newborn dragons. Maggie chuckled when she saw what the maid had made. She wouldn’t have thought of that, but it would be very useful in the coming weeks.

  As the first hunting groups returned, they pulled out the natural treasures they had found. Maggie would place the item next to one of the eggs. If the children responded inside, she would leave the treasure next to the egg. If they didn’t respond, she would add a glyph to the array and use the treasure to add to the strength of the nurturing essence. The first maid attempted to give the loot they had gained to Maggie, but she refused and said that they all needed to level. It was just as important for them to be strong. She would get to hunt soon.

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  As the days passed, their hunting area expanded. As the treasures piled up around the eggs or added to the array, the maids began taking time from their hunts to construct alternative hides throughout the area. One of the maids fashioned pots to hold water that was placed in the children’s array to absorb essence. The water wouldn’t be as good as a potion, but in a pinch could provide the recovery that could mean the difference between life and death.

  After a couple uneventful weeks, the child in the blue tinted egg began scratching the inside of its egg, preparing to escape. Maggie alerted the maids. As the last returned from their hunt, the guard outside, followed her in. No one wanted to miss the birth. An alarm array was placed on the entrance, in case they missed an intruder during the excitement.

  The child inside the blue egg methodically probed its shell for weakness. Seeming to have decided on a plan, the child pushed one claw through and began to slowly cut through the shell. When the first child was about halfway done cutting through his shell, a loud crack sounded and two sets of claws tore out of the other egg and ripped it apart. A stocky baby red dragon with oversized feet, claws, and head forced its way into the world and began rapidly eating the nutrient rich shell it had just ripped its way out of.

  “That one’s a fighter. Look at the size of her claws. She’ll be a brutal one.” Courtney, the most muscular of the maids said while the others ooo’d and awe’d at the beautiful little creature. Maggie leaned forward to sniff the baby that hissed at her and gathered the remaining eggshell closer. “Fire and earth. Extremely high fire and must have chosen earth. It’s low. I suspect her real power will be physical. This one definitely takes after her father. I shall call her Donellazostum after her father’s mother.”

  “And this one is quite the gentleman.” Tammy said while pointing at a blue and silver baby dragon who was sitting in the bottom half of the shell and taking neat little bites of the top half he had neatly cut off.

  “Oh my. I’ve never seen lightning affinity that high and he also has high water and low air affinities. I’ll name him Billinuszostrum after the legendary lightning dragon.” As the ladies watched him, they became confused. As he chewed the bites, he would ground them down into dust then form a bubble of water around it and he added a touch of lightning and air essence to the bubble before he swallowed.

  “Why is he doing that?” Kristy asked. Nobody knew. They had never seen a baby eat like that. Glancing back at Donella, she had finished her shell and was greedily devouring the treasures placed there for her. “Quite the appetite.” Maggie observed. They sat in awe of the two babies. One stuffing treasures into her mouth, viciously chewing a few times before swallowing and the other swallowing little bubbles of perfectly ground eggshell while sniffing the treasures around him and placing them in neat rows in front of him.

  The red soon ran out of treasures and charged her brother to take his. Before anyone could react to stop Donella, Bill released a breath of lightning barely touching his sister but scaring her back. She looked around and began to move towards the treasures placed in the glyph’s powering the array. Another breath from Bill stopped her. He sat down the remaining piece of his shell and casually walked to the unclaimed pile of treasures. Donella was releasing small puffs of smoke, apparently trying to use her breath on her brother.

  When Bill reached the treasures, he sniffed each one and picked some out that he kicked towards his sister who greedily gathered them up and continued her feast. Bill then used his snout to carefully roll some of the treasures to the maids and his mother before taking two for himself and returning to his neat rows of treasures and placing the new additions inside the formation.

  The adults looked at each other in shock, not knowing quite what to think of the precocious little dragon and his voracious sister. Maggie, grabbed the treasure her son had rolled to her and chewed it up and formed a bubble of water around it before swallowing. Her eyes flew open as the treasure was nearly entirely absorbed in an instant, “It speeds up the absorption. How…I mean it would have only taken me seconds, but how…how did he know to do that?”

  The maids also tried the treasures Bili had gifted them, and soaked them in their essences before swallowing. They all had the same result. “He’s got a good eye for affinities.” Kristy said. As they watched, trouble suddenly arrived. The red was out of treasures and Bill still had some, so of course, she charged again.

  Bill didn’t react quick enough and took a solid headbut to his face, splitting his lip. Maggie moved forward to stop Donella, but Billi quickly leveraged his tail and slid out to the side, pulling his sister underneath him. “How…” Courtney started to ask as she leaned in close to observe Bill’s technique. Bill had Donella perfectly pinned underneath with his legs and tail trapping hers. He smiled evilly as licked a drop of blood off of his jaw and then slammed his head into Donella’s. They stared at each other for a second, but Bill seemed slightly stunned and Donella giggled.

  Billi appeared to think about it for a second before viciously slamming his head into Donella again from a different angle with the same result. Frustrated and confused Billi seemed to have an idea. He pushed on his sister’s elbow and crossed her forelegs so he could pin them both with one foot. He then placed his foot on his head and began moving it around. He then did the same to his sister’s head as she tried snapping at him, but he dropped his elbow on her head to hold it still while he continued.

  “Is he comparing head sizes?” Courtney asked, still leaning in to closely observe. Bill glanced at her with a gleam in his eye, but he let his balance shift and Donella threw him off. However, Bill kept her upper body locked, planted his lower body and slammed her head first into Courtney’s much larger head. Problem solved.

  Bill chuffed once in victory before calmly walking back to his remaining treasures to continue his dainty snack. Courtney screamed in horror and picked up Donella, stroking her head while repeating over and over that she was so sorry. Donella just stared at Bill as the ladies gathered around and comforted Donella.

  When Bill finished his treasures, he walked over to the array and began examining it. Stunned, the ladies watched. After a couple minutes, Bill walked back to his nest and inscribed a perfect copy of the array around himself. At first, he seemed confused as nothing happened, but then he made a minor adjustment. After putting a small amount of essence into the correct glyph, the array began condensing the essence slightly more inside his nest.

  The ladies moved forward and inspected the array. “It’s nearly perfect.” Courtney said as Donnella squirmed out of her arms and walked around her brother and then sat and slowly began trying to copy his work. Bill opened one eye, shifted to the side, and adjusted the blanket before tapping on his sister's tail and motioning for her to join him.

  Donella settled in next to her brother and covered him with one of her wings as she let out a contented sigh before falling asleep. The ladies pulled back to the entrance of the cave and looked at each other in shock.

  “Those two definitely aren’t going to be boring.” Tammy said.

  Letting out a chuff, Maggie replied, “You think. They both have a lot of their father in them and I don’t know what to think of Bill.”

  “They’re both going to be something special. Let’s make sure they have a chance, even if it means turning this entire world to ash.” Joanie added as the entire group nodded.