The cavern Jay and Wilhelm stood in had circular dimensions, with a wide dome ceiling. The area was easily large enough to fit the Leviathan inside, and the black walls and ceiling looked smoothly polished, like they were made of volcanic glass. A small trickle of water was running around the edges of the cavern, creating a quiet burbling sound that echoed pleasantly. All of those aspects would have been enough to make the cave a beautiful spot worthy of any spelunker’s bucket list. It was the dragon’s hoard, however, that truly had Jadis’ attention.
“That’s eleria, isn’t it?” Jay murmured in awe. “The whole thing.”
“Yes,” the Hero replied in a hushed voice. “It’s beautiful.”
It was indeed. Jadis had once had the opportunity to see a cave full of eleria nearly a year ago in Weigrun. While other circumstances surrounding the event had dampened the experience, the sight of the sparkling, ethereal crystal in such large quantities had been awe inspiring. Korsregon’s hoard put the cave in Kalters Wall to shame.
A massive spire of the glowing blue crystal rose out of the back of the cavern. The single gemstone had to be forty feet tall at least, and it was wide enough at the base that five Nephilim couldn’t wrap their arms around it fully. Jadis was certain that she could build a fleet of a hundred airships with the single crystal alone, and it was far from the only eleria in the cave.
Dozens of the precious mineral were placed around the circular cavern, creating a kind of gallery. Not even the smallest of the towering crystals was less than twenty feet in height. Around the bases of the eleria spires were more crystals of various other types. Massive geodes, some of which were the size of wagons, had been split open and arranged around the larger formations. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and countless other types of valuable gems were piled up around the eleria or even gathered inside the open geodes like they were nothing more valuable than baskets of apples. Metallic ores had been gathered as well, and Jadis counted at least seven rocks with enough gold ore visible on each of them to finance a small mansion.
“Where does all this come from?” Jay asked, her eyes wide as she took in the beauty of the treasure trove. “I mean, did Korsregon dig all of this out of the mountain?”
“I suppose you would have to ask him,” Wilhelm let out a breath of a laugh as he craned his neck back to look up at the looming eleria spires. “But I have heard tales that many dragons get much of their fortunes from the vaults of a long dead avatar race. They were called the Dvergr, and they were the children of Svaroga, so they spent all their time mining and crafting great treasures out of their father’s bounty. When the Demons wiped them out long ago, the dragons raided the lost Dvergr strongholds and took their wealth for their hoards.”
Jadis had to laugh inwardly at Wilhelm’s explanation. Not because the story was funny, but because the irony of the Hero telling her, the resurrected and singular member of an otherwise extinct race, about a different extinct avatar race, was a little too on the nose. Likely Wilhelm had forgotten that she was a Nephilim, or at least the implications of her being one, in his distraction.
The Hero’s explanation was interrupted as the mighty red dragon who owned the treasure hoard they were both gawking at lumbered past them. The scaly beast walked delicately among the crystals, his great bulk weaving between the eleria spires with surprising grace. He eventually came to a stop around one of the crystals in the back of the cave and began to sift through the piles of jewels gathered around the base. Jay’s view was blocked by both the dragon and the other crystals, so she moved to the side and craned her neck to see what Korsregon was up to. She was careful not to touch anything, even as she maneuvered to get a better look at the distant pile. However, when she finally caught sight of what the dragon was nosing through, she nearly broke her promise by falling over in shock.
Around the crystal in the back was a veritable mountain of armor and weapons. Swords, shields, helmets, pauldrons, and every other kind of metallic piece of equipment one might find inside an armory was visible in the pile. The jumbled mess of weapons and armor were hard to distinguish from each other at a distance, but Jay could see that many of the pieces were ornamental, if the gold and jewels crusting their designs were anything to go by.
Were those trinkets the remains of the Dvergr civilization? Or had Korsregon sourced the mound of war equipment from somewhere else? He could have raided countless castles in Volto or the Empire over his long lifespan. Or treasure hunters could have become unwilling donators to his hoard, if any had been dumb enough to go looking for a dragon’s lair.
“I wonder what he’s up to,” Wilhelm asked quietly, though his attention was still focused on the incredible gemstones on display.
“Not sure, but he’s coming this way,” Jay whispered to the man as she moved back to where she had been a moment before.
Returning to the entrance of the chamber, Korsregon lowered his head so that his large, golden eyes were on the same level as Jay’s head. Gazing at the beast without flinching, she waited to see what the dragon would do. When he opened his mouth, she half expected him to blast her with some hidden breath attack he hadn’t put to use earlier. Instead, much to her confusion, he extended his long tongue out to her.
At first, she thought he might be trying to lick her, which would have been awkward and embarrassing for everyone involved. Jadis had already spent enough time in contact with the dragon’s tongue for her taste. However, she soon noticed that there was an object resting on the tip of Korsregon’s extended tongue, likely having been pulled from the pile of weapons and armor he had been rooting around in just a few seconds ago.
The object was… a helmet, Jadis realized. At first, she had thought that it was the severed head of a metallic statue since there were no eye holes, though closer examination told her that the helm was hollow, and had clasps clearly designed so that it could be opened. The item was, quite honestly, one of the most beautiful works of art Jadis had ever seen. The perfectly symmetrical face was that of a hauntingly gorgeous woman, with fine features and a knowing smile. The metal the mask was made from, whatever material it might be, was as white as marble. Gold, silver, and some sort of blue metallic filagree was used on the helmet’s face, creating intricate patterns that made the frozen expression seem exotic, yet familiar at the same time. The top and back of the helm had been molded to resemble hair that had been swept back, and the details were so fine that Jadis could see the individual strands of hair.
A blast of hot and somewhat smelly breath reminded Jay that she was just standing there, staring, while Korsregon stuck his tongue out at her. Reaching out, she took the helm from the dragon’s mouth and found it to be much lighter than she was expecting. More interesting, though, was the fact that the helm was made for someone of her size, not a human, or Dvergr, or anyone else of a smaller stature.
Letting out another huff of breath and a rumbling growl, Korsregon motioned with one paw for both Jay and Wilhelm to follow him back out of his treasure cave. Neither protested the command, and they both walked behind the dragon while whispering to each other softly.
“Is this supposed to be a, I don’t know, apology gift?” Jay asked as she passed the strange yet beautiful helmet to Wilhelm.
“I suppose so,” the Hero said as he carefully examined the item with a delicate touch. “Again, I have no real experience with friendly dragons, so to speak. This is all new to me as well.”
“This has been such a weird day,” Jay chuckled while brushing her hair out of her face. “If I had to report this shit to anyone else, I don’t even know how I would word it.”
“Hmm,” Wilhelm hummed absently. “I often feel the same way. My letters to home are frequently brief, out of necessity. There are simply not enough words to explain my life to my parents.”
Passing the helm back to Jay, he tilted his head to one side while looking up at her.
“You know, the face on that helmet looks much like yours.”
“You think so?” Jay asked, holding the helm out in front of her.
“I do,” Wilhelm nodded. “I wonder if that might explain its origin.”
Jadis wasn’t sure herself, but the consensus among her lovers was that yes, indeed, the face depicted on the helmet absolutely shared similarities to her.
After having returned from her little trip to visit the dragon’s hoard, Jay settled back in with her lovers who had all grouped together. They were staying the night in the cavern, and bedding had been laid out for everyone so that they could make themselves comfortable. Hushed conversations were shared in huddled groups as the Nox clan mercenaries discussed… well, Jadis could only imagine. At least she had built up some immunity to the weirdness of her luck over time. They had no experience with how strange things could go if any amount of time was spent around her. The Hero’s party was similarly used to extraordinary circumstances considering their own high-stakes lifestyles, and Noll was about as flappable as an iron ball. Whether through conversation or commiseration, everyone was handling the unexpected situation of spending the night in a dragon’s den the best they could.
“This is enchanted,” Sabina asserted as she closely examined the interior of the opened helmet.
“How can you tell?” Syd asked as she leaned over the half-elf. “I don’t see any runes or eleria.”
“There is a very fine, super small, almost imperceptible seam on the inside here, where the joints for the catch meet,” the smith indicated a spot on the helm. Syd couldn’t see anything, but she nodded along as Sabina continued her explanation. “Whoever crafted this helmet used a similar technique to the one that Doru and I used when we made your sword staff, so that the runes would be inside of the metal rather than on the outside. That’s not uncommon for weapons and armor, but the level of detail on the face of this mask is amazing! You can’t make these kinds of changes to the armor after you have added the enchantments, because that will mess with the way they interact with the armor, which means they were done before making the enchantments and putting them inside the metal, which would have taken an incredible amount of skill to do without causing damage to the fine work on the outer face! Whoever made this was a master!”
“A master who forgot to put eyeholes on the thing,” Bridget pointed out from where she sprawled on a thick fur rug nearby. “If you wore that, you would be blind as a human at night. No offense.”
“None taken,” Aila replied.
“It’s fine,” Thea shrugged.
“Any master craftsman who was capable of making something like this wouldn’t have overlooked something so simple,” Sabina mumbled as she continued to examine the helmet. “I wonder if there’s some kind of a trick…”
Jadis watched with amusement as Sabina fiddled around with the metallic helm for several minutes before eventually growing frustrated enough that she put the item over her head. Since it was sized for a Nephilim, the effect was comical on Sabina’s much smaller frame.
“I wonder where Korsregon got the helmet from,” Jay pondered as she watched the smith’s efforts from the other side of the circle they had made. “It has to be a Nephilim artifact, right?”
“Possibly,” Aila nodded in agreement. “It has the look. Though maybe the Dvergr made the item and gifted it to the Nephilim.”
“The Nephilim homeland is not too far from here, relatively speaking,” Severina said thoughtfully. “The dragon may have raided one of their ruins. Perhaps even the Last Bastion itself.”
“It’s been a couple thousand years. I guess it could have been picked up just about anywhere. We don’t know how old Korsregon is, do we?”
“Several hundred years at least,” Meli interjected. “He is not a young dragon, nor is Vetraka, but they are not old either.”
“Ah ha!”
All other conversations were cut off as Sabina held up one hand in triumph.
“I got it!”
Without further warning, the white metallic helmet that Sabina had put on her head lit up in a blaze of splendor. A crown of shining diamonds appeared around the helm, with a tall point in the front that sparkled like the north star. More ephemeral diamonds spread out like a shawl made of stars across the head of the helm, draping all the way down to Sabina’s shoulders. Far more startling though was the helmet’s eyes. Metallic eyelids had lifted, revealing blue irises with golden highlights surrounding pupils made from blackest obsidian. As Sabina turned her head to look up at Syd, Jadis saw the helm’s eyes literally shift and move, just like they were real.
“It’s some kind of image enchantment!” Sabina’s voice came from inside the helm. While the enchanted eyes moved around in a lifelike fashion, even blinking, the helm’s mouth stayed unmoving. “I can see everything around me like I’m looking though the helmet! There’s no obstruction at all! It’s amazing!”
“That is so weird and creepy,” Kerr said with a curled lip as she stared at the helmet’s moving eyes.
“Huh?” Sabina responded, clearly unaware of the full effect of the enchantment.
“Here, let me show you,” Syd said before taking the helmet off of the smith and putting it on herself.
“Oh! That is creepy! But also beautiful! Is haunting the right word? Maybe it’s haunting!”
Whether creepy or beautiful, the reaction from Hope was far from displeased. Squealing with joy, the baby reached out with her hands to try and touch the sparkly new toy on one of Jadis’ heads. Taking Hope from Alex’s arms, Syd held her up to her face and let the infant poke and slap at the metal with evident excitement. For her part, Syd was delighted to find that Sabina’s words were true; she could see through the helmet as though she was wearing nothing at all.
“I think it really is a Nephilim artifact,” Jay said as she watched her other self play with Hope. “Something special from a long time ago.”
“You’re probably right,” Aila agreed after a moment. “I can only imagine what the full set would look like. Or who would have worn something like it. Armor enchanted in such a way had to have been incredibly expensive and time consuming.”
“Which gives me an idea,” Jay smiled to herself before turning to look at Meli.
“You said Vetraka is… what, Vetregin’s granddaughter?”
“That would be the imperial word for the relationship,” the Dryad nodded after thinking about it. “Her mother is from one of Vetregin’s broods.”
“Do you think there’s any chance that she’s ever been to Vetregin’s lair and seen his hoard?”
“Possibly,” Meli shrugged. “I would have to ask.”
“Please do,” Jay grinned widely. “Because I think I finally have an idea of what I would want to exchange the token Vetregin gave me for.”
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