Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

A few days have passed since the departure of his finest soldiers and not a single word had arrived from the vessels. No pigeons, no letter, nothing but quiet disappointment had taken over his mind. Assuming the Djinn queen had cast some spell on his soldiers, Aran turned to his council only for them to sit quietly with only Maryline the eldest blabbing on about her mind.

"It has only been a week my lord, you worry too quickly," her cackling bounced off the walls and echoed through the halls, all the while, the other wise men and women scorned her with curses behind sealed lips.

Pacing about in the hall, Maryline kept tapping her stick on the dark tiles veined with gold. It was her way of warning the dissents to keep their thoughts to themselves. She'd used the same method to berate and beat the confidence out of the young wise men and women, and even in their adulthood the council couldn't break out of their fear for that woman.

The king was no longer ignorant of the woman's hold on his council, even thus he held his tongue as did the other, but not for the reason as the cowards he'd surrounded himself with.

"Bring me my sword…" He uttered and the council gasped.

Maryline turned quickly to the king and almost slipped on her cane, but keeping herself up somehow, she gazed up at her king with a horrified quiver in her eyes.

"B-but my lord!"

"SILENCE!" He ordered, Aran have had enough of cowardice in the halls hosting the souls of their ancestors. Slamming his fist on the armrest, he glanced across the many cowards before bringing his gaze back to the withered witch. "Consider this mercy Maryline, I now know how you've crippled these could-be prodigies, these descendants of our ancestors!"

"Wh-what?!" Letting go of her cane in fear, the old woman tried to step back but fell on her bony bum. Panting as her eyes stared into his bloodshot silver gaze, she reached towards the light beaming from behind the throne. "But I-I…I helped you so much! I made you who you are! How coul–"

"Throw her in the dungeons," cutting her off, Aran glanced sideways at the soldiers standing beside him. "Give her whatever she might need to spend her life in peace in that dungeon, that is my verdict for this venomous viper."

"NO! YOU CAN'T!" The screeching voice of the withered soul was heard for the last time inside that hall as the soldiers bowed to the king's order and dragged her to the dungeon like a child throwing a tantrum.

"Now then," looking around at the cowards yet again, Aran's face contorted in anger. He wished to cast down punishment on each one of them. Had it not been for the letter he'd received last night detailing the hypnotic hold Maryline had on their mind, he would've thrown them all to the dungeons as well, but for now with her gone, he wanted to give them a chance to attempt to shine. "Bring me my sword, I'm going to Lantherem myself."

An instinctual jolt forced the council members to the edge of their seats, their hands outstretched; they wanted to stop their king from leaving the kingdom without him–however, after seeing him condemn Maryline, none had any dignity left to speak against him.

"As for you, council of morons," glaring at every one of the sitting members, Aran rose from his throne and began walking down the steps. "Take care of my land and my people while I'm gone…"

Burdened with the responsibility to uphold their ancestry's honor, Aran walked alongside his soldiers accompanying him to the royal armory. There rests the treasures of old, some far more ancient than the island itself. Each held great power and had served a great purpose, and now it was time for Aran to pick his sword from that bunch and slash Lantherem in two if that was what was required to reclaim the honor of the kings before him.

"Keep an eye on these idiots," hearing him speak as they walked down an open corridor, the soldiers turned their heads at their lord with a look of visible confusion plastered on their faces. "And if I were not to return, choose amongst yourself–the army, the next king of Aranuvia or just hand the reins to that queen if you're just as cowardly as that bunch!"

His voice rumbling with anger reflected just how much honor meant to a warrior like him. He would rather the kingdom fall in the hands of the enemy than let a fool or a coward lead it into oblivion. The kings of the past would've felt the same, or at least that's what he believed and decided to trust his instincts with that assessment.

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'Either way, the land's doomed if the brightest soldiers have been bested.'

Unable to shake the feeling of doom from his head, Aran knew that his soldiers had perished in one way or the other, leaving only him as a renowned warrior in his kingdom to defend his ancestry's dignity by putting a rest to whatever it was that had taken them down.

'I'll strike them down before they set a single foot on our land.'

Making himself that promise, he walked into the armory with burning vigor strong enough to strike down a horde of steel dragons. And speaking of the kind, downing his armor, throwing his great sword over his shoulder, and seeking deep within for the power drawn from the souls of his enemies, he walked through the passage in the royal armory that led deeper into the treasury vault.

There she rested, seated on a crown of riches–the steel dragoness, Galleria.

"Here to bring me another treasure to guard, Mathew?" Said the dragoness with an elusive smile and in a whisper. Seated on piles of gold, other riches and a ruby-scaled throne, the dark-horned dragoness with a hint of violet running along her spiraling horns, knew exactly why Aran was there and yet she loved to push him around.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Walking into the treasury with the silver vault behind Galleria, Aran dragged his sword along the diamond tiles–a warning of sorts for the steel dragoness, the very last of her herd left alive. Seeing how easily the tip of his sword cut through the diamond, the dragoness hopped off of her seat and whistled playfully.

"Aye~ Aye~ Captain, go ahead it's all yours anyways, am I right?" Tipping a small top hat in the image of a jeweled crown, she let Aran browse through the treasure and whatever world-shattering artifacts his ancestors and he had locked inside that vault.

Watching him pass with a smile on her face, the dragoness couldn't help the thought.

'I wonder which species he'll turn extinct this time?'

Being the last of her clan, she knew all too well how this was about to end.