The ashes before Strife

Episode 9 : The vault and The egg ; 4

Curious and amazed I asked, "did he succeed?"

She turned with a smile "Yeah. But how is a mystery since he took the method and sword to the grave with him." Dwarves really can't be underestimated for their crafting abilities.

Lupra then jumped out of me and had a sniff of the air. "What's up Lupra you wanna look around?"

'Yes, papa! There's a lot of weird smells here!'

"Okay just don't eat anything." She then pranced away down the stone hallway looking about, I turned to Torren who was eyeing Lupra "so how much am I allowed to take?"

She averted her gaze from Lupra smiling "originally I was gonna say two things, however, If you let me have some fur from yer Fenrir I'll bump it up to three." I was strangely unsurprised by how she realized it, she must have worked with loads of beast parts so it's no wonder.

I then pulled a large sack out from my void ring on my necklace and tossed it over to her "Lupra tends to shed a lot so why not?" Her face gleamed as she pulled out a hand full of white fur from the brown bag, I've been wanting to get rid of it and now seemed the perfect place with how many antiquities are here. "I'll be taking my time looking about then."

As I wondered every isle in the vast stone warehouse had things rarely seen or never seen before making my choice hard to make until I found a strange belt with a scintilla holster, as well as several knives, handles in it.

But when I pulled the handles out the blades weren't there so I tried imbuing mana but had no effect.

I then tried using alchemy and sharp stone blades then formed from the air, I threw them into the floor seeing how sharp they were as they impaled it not breaking either. I took a moment but I also noticed the thin string it had connected to my hand somehow. I pulled on it testing its strength to see it was fairly durable and sharp itself and decided to take the belt putting it over my shoulder.

I then found Lupra atop a shelf aggressively trying to open a chest "need a hand?"

She then knocked it down breaking it open with a loud crash. We stared at each other quietly as I swept the broken wood away with my foot hiding it, finding a bluestone studded piece of frozen meat.

Lupra drooled as I held it up in the air, I could tell it would benefit her growth with how much ice mana it had but was slightly worried about the wind mana. Her pleading eyes begged me for it, I doubt it'll be anything harmful if she wants it that bad right? I then froze it and put it under my arm "let's look for one more thing together Lupra."

We spent another hour looking around browsing through the rows of items seeing everything on offer but found nothing evidently useful to either of us. "Incursik if you have any thoughts, could you say? I'm drawn at a blank at what to get."

I waited for a few seconds waiting for his response with no reply sighing until he briefly spoke 'isle Z. black box.' I thanked him and wandered to the back of the large room seeing Torren strutting back and forth.

"Oh, Incursik? Did you get everything?"

"No, not yet." I then walked past her looking for a black box spotting it at the very end.

I quickly jogged along with Lupra who suddenly started backing away from it as I got closer. "Hm? What's wrong Lupra?"

'Papa... that things alive.' Questioning how I sensed no breath or sign of life I opened the lid on the black box revealing a black egg with red and silver patterns across it.

I pulled it out coursing my mana into it seeing something alive, something powerful.

"Oh? You don't want that. It's a dragon's dead egg." I looked over at Torren as she looked at me complacent not lying, how though? It's clearly alive...

"I'm taking this as well as the other two items." She looked at me judgingly but didn't say anything. "Well alright then. I guess everyone has their fancy. Try not to do any strange alchemy on it alright?"

As we left I took off my old belt replacing it with the new one and Lupra quickly ate the strange meat despite it still being frozen in ice. There was a small burst of wind from her and could feel all the wind mana now under her influence "guess it was okay for you then."

As we exited the vault it loudly closed behind us as Torren turned to face us "Here I'd like to also invite you as a friend to the Royal auction tomorrow." A butler then came around holding a silver plate with two items resting on it.

"So we're friends now after I looted your vault?" Torren's butler handed me a silver ticket along with a black plaque engraved with two golden hammers "what makes you think I'll come?"

She scoffed slightly in response "please. I can tell with your personality your not going to miss an opportunity that can benefit you. There will be items that even I don't have available then and you'll have the chance to mingle with the dwarves royals as well as the Searig Royals."

Me in a room with two prominent families? It'll be entertaining, to say the least.

"Alright, I'll come. However, I doubt I'll have a chance to get anything with such high caliber big wigs coming along."

Understanding what I meant she nodded "Don't worry. You'll have plenty of numa available to spend tomorrow as well."

She then snapped her fingers and Wintry pulled out 10 black coin cards. After looking into one I was shocked as it had 5 million numa!

Not daring to even look at the other nine I quickly put them into my coat pocket. "Thank you for the invite Tory."

"Ya welcome inky." We shook each other's hand with mutual respect and I quickly left still carrying the egg heading for an open area outside of the port city.

Whatever is in this egg clearly wanted to hatch but is being restricted. Once I unseal it I wonder if it'll see me as a parent or not?