I let Jenny, Esme, and Benton head back to the Cod through the portal, then I moved it to where I’d left my bunnie army guarding the shit behind the bank. I stepped through and reached out through the crystal to summon a standard one as well as the slightly dysfunctional one. I wanted to keep that one close. If it went loco, it could do a lot of damage to the relatively low-level and weak townsfolk.

  The locals shied away when they saw me and my big-eared escort. Soldiers were suddenly absent. Before, I would have seen half a dozen lurking on any given street. I avoided going near the palisade and made my way directly to the barracks to have my showdown with Johnson. I hoped that I could negotiate a settlement, but if not, I’d do my best to avoid eating anyone.

  “Sah! You do not have access to the barracks at this time!” barked Jones as I approached.

  “C’mon, Jones, let’s do this the easy way. You don’t want to fight.”

  “You’re a fucking dragon!” yelled his companion as he leveled his spear in my direction. I decided to try something, but I wasn’t sure it would work, and I had a solid fallback option: punching them in the head until they went to sleepy-land if it failed. So I took a gamble. I rolled the dice.

  I raised a hand and channeled my mana out from the source that lurked in my chest. It flowed down my right arm, and I fought the power into a Z-shaped sigil on my palm. It didn’t want to conform; it wanted to run wild. It was the essence of change, of metamorphosis. The mana was like a river or the tide. Liquid in a way that I couldn’t define, but once I built dams of sheer willpower to channel it where I wanted it to go, it stopped fighting me and charged in the desired direction.

  All those wasted hours struggling to make it work on an evening or when I should have been sleeping if I were still a squishy human finally paid off. Something clicked in my head.

  New Fundamentus unlocked! New Syntheticus unlocked!

  Arcane Affinity:

  Mana circuit: Basic (monster)

  Mana: 300

  Spell list:

  Fundamentus:

  Arcanum Evocare (1MP)

  Ducta Potentia

  Artis Sigilum

  Syntheticus:

  Missa Somnambulis

  Arcanum Evocare was touching the mana, Ducta Potentia was moving it where I wanted it to go, and Artis Siglium was forging the circuit that dictated the result of the channeling! This was what all those bloody mages had been doing, and now I had access to their spells, at least in theory. My reptilian memory, a bonus of having a brain the same size as a newborn calf, had logged all the weaves and sigils I’d seen before. All it had taken was the will to put it into practice. I silently thanked Nietzsche as the two soldiers collapsed to the ground and began to snore noisily. It cost me thirty mana. So I had ten mass sleep spells if I started with a full tank.

  Stepping over the troopers, I pushed at the door, but it was locked. How rude. I turned a finger into an obsidian claw and sliced through where I thought the lock would be, and shoved with a shoulder, but I bounced off. Fine—no more Mr. Nice Bob.

  Both hands shifted into claws of midnight chitin, and I dug them into the wood next to the top hinges. As I tore the door free from the frame, a shrieking sound went off inside the compound, and a column of fire washed over me.

  “I liked this outfit!” I complained as I waded forward through the fire and the flames until I could punch the gem set in the ceiling, shattering it and cutting off the trap. My clothes were charred rags, but they were still allowing me to meet the most basic levels of decency, so I walked on into the den of the enemy, flanked by two murder-bunnies, one of which kept spinning round and moonwalking backwards when it checked the rear was still clear.

  I kicked the door to the briefing room open and was immediately pincushioned by half a dozen crossbow bolts.

  “All centre mass,” I congratulated them as I yanked the shafts out of my chest and tossed them to the side. “Look, Johnson, we need to talk. So maybe tell those idiots to stop reloading and let's have a drink and sort this shit out.”

  “Sevris, hold!” Johnson ordered, and a mousy-looking woman in light armour materialised next to him.

  “He’s broken through, Cap. He’s figured out the Fundamentus. He’s a dragon-mage!”

  “What affinity?” Johnson said as he drew his sword, and I raised my hands in the universal sign of ‘don’t fucking shoot me again’.

  “None. All of them? I can’t–” the mage began.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “It’s arcane. Look, can we all put away our swords, crossbows, and spells? Don’t think I can’t see you over there with the daggers! Oh hi! It’s Edible Reg. You might want to get him out of here, Johnson. I’m planning to eat him at some point.” I pointed at the man who would soon enough receive a very toothy lesson in consent.

  “Go, Reg.” Johnson nodded his head to a side door, and the terrified soldier scurried away. “So, you’re a dragon. My money was on slime or fox-girl.”

  “You thought I was a kitsune? Well, swing and a miss. Yep, I’m a big scaly nightmare, but this is my town and I’m letting you mammals fuck it up for me!” I snarled the last part as I pulled out a chair and sat down, flanked on either side by my cyborgs.

  “Why did you declare against us? We were working together. Oh, for the love of– the rest of you stand down. Someone get a kettle on. I need some tea.” The other soldiers shuffled out reluctantly, except for Sevris, who sat down next to Johnson.

  “Since Kelsy bought it, Sevris is mage-sergeant; she’s staying,” said the captain when he noticed me watching the woman. She smelled delicious. I tried my best to keep my mouth closed as much as possible when I replied.

  “It was a mistake. I was explaining things to a few of the locals, and I got a bit worked up. I’ve got no problem with you and your people, Johnson, and nothing against Pratnip, except for his prick of a son.”

  “His son is a prick,” Johnson mumbled.

  “How dare you!” the voice came from behind a false panel. I sent a bunny over to rip it away and dragged the aforementioned prick out into the glow of the lightballs that lined the walls.

  “Unhand me, you… What the hell are you?” Lieutenant-the-lord Pratnip yelled.

  “Shamone!” replied the bunny with a shrug.

  “Wilson Pratnip, your father–” Johnson began in a heavy voice.

  “My father is going to eviscerate you for consorting with rebel scum!” The lord's son was reminiscent of one of the dudes in Star Wars who got force-choked by Vader. I wondered what it would take to get a similar spell. “You will rue the day you turned traitor to the Pratnips!” The kid was frothing at the mouth as he swung back and forth from Jacko-bunny.

  “Una Somna. Oblivastur Recentis,” Sevris intoned.

  New Syntheticus unlocked!

  Una Somna

  Oblivastur Recentis

  I cocked an eyebrow at her as I blinked the notifications away. Being a dragon was great. Being a dragon-mage was amazing!

  “What did the second one do? You put him to sleep with the first one.”

  “I scrubbed his recent memories. He’ll be confused when he wakes up. You can’t use it too often, or it turns people's brains into porridge. You just learned both those spells after seeing them once, didn’t you?” I grinned, and she went pale.

  “Captain–”

  “Enough, Sevris. If he wants to kill us, he will. We might hurt him a bit, and we might hurt people he cares about even more in the process, but this is a question of leverage.” My fingers had shifted into claws and had dug deep grooves in the table at the implied threat.

  “If you take what’s mine, if you hurt them…” I growled. He raised his hands in what I was starting to think of as the universal sign for ‘don’t eat me’.

  “I’m not the monster, Bob.”

  “Touche. Well, as a gesture of goodwill, here you go.” I produced a pile of sacks of flour next to me by the table. “Food as promised. And I am a monster.”

  “Appreciate that, Bob. So now we need to find a way to coexist, at least until the Sausage Makers are dealt with, yes?”

  “Agreed. I’ve got a plan to drive them off without casualties,” I said. Sevris narrowed her light brown eyes at me.

  “Without casualties on your side?” she asked pointedly.

  “Without any casualties, beyond a few people's pride, but that doesn’t count. So, Mage-Sergeant, Captain, do we have a truce?”

  “We do for now. I want a guard detail on you whenever you’re–”

  “No. I won’t be followed about by mammals in my own land.” I produced three glasses and a bottle of Golden Jack from my pouch and poured a shot into each of them. I slid a pair of glasses across the table to stop in front of the soldiers and raised my own glass. “Truce?” They each raised their own glasses slowly and sniffed at them. “Of all the ways I could kill you if I wanted to, you think I’d resort to poison?” I drained my own cup.

  “I’m just savouring the aroma,” Sevris grumbled before taking a slow sip and sighing happily. She undid the strap on her leather breastplate and shucked it slightly to one side as she settled back into her chair. “You know how much this stuff costs? Guess how much we get paid?” She waved her glass at me.

  My greed-goblin started trying to punch me in the brain to stop my thinking thoughts from continuing to thunk. Iron will. Draconic determination. I retained control and didn’t try to eat myself for the offence to my hoard.

  “I am a generous employer.” It didn’t sound like a warm invitation; it sounded like I was having piles lanced, but I managed to offer to pay them out loud, and I was extremely proud of myself. Baby steps. Who needed that ascot anyway? Not this dragon.

  “Bribery is a crime. Not a great start to our new relationship,” Johnson said drily as he took a sip of his drink.

  “Not bribery. An open offer. If you want to come over to the side of the angels, the door is open.”

  “Just because you’ve got wings doesn’t make you an angel. Lots of things have wings that aren’t so nice,” Sevris added.

  I finished my glass and put it back in my storage.

  “We’re agreed, though? While Foreverknot is in play, we leave each other alone?” I asked as I stood.

  “Yes, Bob. I’m also intrigued to see what you really look like,” mumbled Johnson as he finished his cup. That had been a double at most. He really couldn’t handle his booze.

  “Hee hee!” said Rabbot-Michael as I nodded and left. He moonwalked out of the room so he could keep an eye on the Romper leadership after I turned my back on them.

  I pulled half the cyber-bunnies off the literal shit detail behind the bank and had them accompany me through town. I set them up around the Cod and left them with preprogrammed instructions to defend the place against any and all armed attacks.

  The barroom was full. But there wasn’t a single soldier in sight. Mr. Papitol, the chap whose overgrown garden I’d gone to war with, raised a glass of wine at me. Mrs. Hatrick sniffed at me but nodded politely, and Mad Mordechai stared at me with oversized eyes as the lenses in his glasses cycled in and out.

  Half the business luminaries of the town were present, along with a bunch of the farmers and traders I’d dealt with when I was selling the loot from the jobs I did back at the start to build my reputation in the Mill. Great. Speech time.

  “I’ve got the bodies of the civilians that the Chippolatas killed. I’m sorry for your loss.” Not a great opening line, and I wasn’t particularly sorry. This wasn’t even dragon-me being an unfeeling bastard. I’d thought the same about other people's losses back when I was a human on Earth.

  “I’ve made peace with the Rompers, for now. This is my town, and I’ll fight anyone who wants to take it from me!”

  “And who do you think you are, young dragon, to make such boasts?” I spun to glare at the source of a voice I’d never heard before.