“You call that a castle?” Sen complained as he bathed in the lava around his new lair, “I demand at least seven towers! Work harder!”“Yes, Emperor Sen!” the kobolds shouted back, while Sen briefly closed his eyes in satisfaction at the name. The minions had built a large bridge to carry raw material from the mountain to the castle, rebuilding the towers the dragon had destroyed during the War of the Hoard.The hyena-like humanoid called gnolls carried most of the black stones making up the castle, the males doing most of the work under the supervision of their females. Sen found their spotted fur and their clothes funny to look at.As it turned out, the encampments south belonged to gnoll tribes who lived in fear of the dread Furibon, who allowed them to live and keep their gold so long as they obeyed him. Most had fled the region when Sen warred against the lich, but the few who didn’t came to Murmurin looking for work. After condemning them for knowingly serving that cruel undead,

Jules said nothing, with Manling Kyle putting a hand on his back and shaking his head. “Still, Your Majesty,” the chief of staff said. “We don’t have the means to feed our own minion population, let alone so many dragons.”“Minions, you fail to notice the perfectly good rations building my castle,” Sen said, eying the gnolls and the werewolves. Only the kobolds, he couldn’t bear to sacrifice and would have to hide from his kindred. “Also, that way, it means less mouths to feed.”“I would rather not,” Manling Kyle said.“Then summon fiends. They are plentiful if rancid and bitter.”“At this rate, I think we will depopulate Hell faster than Heaven ever did. Your Majesty, we need more resources, more food, than we can provide right now. I’m using everything we have, even having Jules scour the countryside to revive decades old corpses as undead labor, and two moons is still too short a time window.”“Well, Kyle, since you use seawater greenhousing, you must accumulate a lot of salt, do y

“Hey, Kyle!” Savoureuse waved at him. “How are you? I hope work isn’t stressful.”“Not as stressful as getting kidnapped by a lich while you watched,” Kyle replied with heavy sarcasm.“Yes, but my life was in danger,” Savoureuse said. “I could not help.”Yeah, right. Why was he friends with her again? For the food, he decided. And maybe the Crests, if she could smuggle one as he asked her to. If only Furibon had left one behind, but he had sent all of those found in the region to Brandon Maure to empowering his soldiers.His eyes settled on the newcomer. “And who might you be?”“Remember the woman I told you about?” Savoureuse asked, slightly embarrassed. “This is her.”“My name is Lucie Lavere, of the Royal University of Gardemagne,” the newcomer said with a formal, professional posture. “I heard a lot about you and your master, Lord Kyle.”“Oh? From whom?” According to Savoureuse, this woman belonged to the Nightblades, and so she was bad news.“Many, but especially my new friend He

Sen forced himself not to fall asleep out of boredom in the middle of the flight. He was sick of this endless desert, carrying his chief of staff in one hand, and a big, goatskin bag for princesses in the other. “Why am I flying invisible again?” the dragon asked his minion, who had insisted Sen use his ‘Blinkblink’ ring. “And why didn't we bring the other minions?”“Because otherwise Brandon Maure will have us shot on sight, and my [Cowl of the Reaper] grants me some camouflage.” The minion sounded tired, and just as bored as his master. “It’s better to travel light.”“Minion, I meant why I should care if that fiend notices?”“Because we are on a princess rescue mission, which means we need to be discreet. Otherwise, Maure will evacuate them elsewhere, and we may not know where this time.”At long last, Sen finally noticed their destination when he squinted his eyes at the horizon.A rock the size of the Valen mountains’ tallest peak floated above the desert, a fortress-city built fr

Sen squinted at the griffon, who glared back at him. “I am listening,” he said, in case that knight could be helpful in carrying his princesses to Murmurin.“First, I have to ask, do you intend to fight Maure yourselves? Because I can’t support it.”“Why? Because it would be dangerous?” Minion Kyle asked.“What? No, it would be amazing, and I insist on coming along.” The manling sounded positively giddy. “I’ve been trying to convince my party for months to kick that foppish demon bastard’s ass, and they always delay. Same with the lich. If we had known he worked a foul magic which threatened the world...”“Your feeble mind cannot imagine the depth of Furibon’s depravity,” Sen said grimly. “He was pure evil, the kind that existed for itself. He was unliving lead.”“For a dragon to say that… I’m not going to ask for the gory details. Is that his soul in the scythe?” The knight looked up at the Manling Kyle's weapon, "I see... you took that cursed Reaper class because it was the only way