Meanwhile, in the county capital, POV ???:
A short figure walked down the old wooden stairs that were creaking with each of her steps. Her light blond hair was meticulously put into two ponytails bouncing next to her pointy ears. She finally reached the bottom of the stairs and patted her clothes with her small and soft hands. She wore a practically looking green dress embroidered with imagery of leaves and twigs.
The room around her was relatively big, with lots of shelves holding an extensive collection of various weapons and other pieces of equipment shining in light emitted from glowing white crystals hanging from the ceiling. The furniture in the room looked old but, at the same time, perfectly clean without even a speck of dust. She glanced at a sturdy-looking wooden door with a small brass bell hanging next to them. She quickly walked towards them while humming in a quiet, melodious voice, the old floor creaking under her light steps.
With a single wave of her hand, until now, invisible runes on the doors flared up, causing the intricate lock to move, and the doors widely opened. She looked out with expectant eyes, but her delicate face with a small petite nose immediately wrenched in letdown as she sighed, 'Again, no customers.'.
A space before her doors was empty, with only a single large line of people forming before a large two-story tall building made out of large stone bricks opposite of her own store. An intricately decorated metallic sign with a hammer and simple magical rune hung above the doors of the opposite store. She threw a last envious glance at the opposite store and the small crowd before it, 'Are they stupid? Why is everyone seeking that old senile fart?.' She patted her small and childish figure, 'Is it because I look like a small girl?' then she gently stroked her long and pointy ears, 'Or is it because of my elven heritage.' She slowly walked back into her store and sat down at an old wobbly chair.
It was already almost one year from when she travelled out of the elven lands to a nearby human kingdom, seeking to gain experience with her art and money to finance her research. She thought that as an elven runic enchanter, she would have many customers, allowing her to quickly gain lots of funding for her research. She thought that with her superior elven mana control compared to humans' junky one, everyone would want her services. However, surprisingly to her, no one was looking at her as at an experienced artist.
'They are either looking at me as a cute child even though they know we elves are aging much slower than humans. 'She wrenched her small nose as she hated it when some random people offered her candies, 'That is still better than the second group that is looking at me as if they wanted to stab me just because I am an elf.'
"Ding!" the bell hanging next to her doors dinged.
'Finally, a customer!' she looked towards the door with a professional smile.
However, her smile immediately vanished as a man dressed like a vagabond in old and dirty clothes with a thick gambeson bulging under them walked inside. He walked to the closest shelf with weapons and kept looking at them as if browsing through them.
However, she noticed that he kept secretly looking at her from the corners of his eyes, thinking that she didn't notice, 'Damn, this is the fifth one this week.' She had already noticed that some suspiciously figure recently started to watch her, making her afraid to leave her store.
'It was bad before, but now with these shady people around, it's even worse.' She wasn't stupid and could easily imagine their intention. She had already thought about returning back home, but she had no money for her journey back as she had invested everything she had into her business venture.
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon flapped his wings, flying towards the stone structure in front of him, leaving the ancient wyrm emitting lighting bolts hovering in the air behind him. The wyrm shot one last glance at the dragon before flapping its wings and launching itself onto a horizon leaving behind a trail of lightning.
After learning about the trials, there was nothing else to talk about with the wyrm that was urgent, so he hurriedly left. He had plenty of questions for the wyrm, but he felt that he would be in a better position after passing the trial.
Vesuvius kept flapping his wings as the storm around him slowly calmed down, hail changing back to rain. The stone structure kept getting closer and closer, slowly revealing its massive stone pillars that went multiple stories high, holding the roof made out of one piece of plain oval stone. There were no carvings or decorations, making the building look simple and plain.
The dragon landed in front of it, mud splashing everywhere as he landed on rain-soaked ground. He took one step forwards and entered the structure. It was open without any walls, just with open space between the massive pillars. He looked at the ceiling realising the sheer scale of the structure. His eyes fell upon a massive statue of an unknown dragon made out of pure gold that stood in the middle of the open space.
Vesuvius's heart started to beat faster, seeing the huge mass of gold in the middle. But invisible holy energy washed over him from the statue, alerting him of divine retribution that would befall him if he attempted to steal that statue. Shivers passed through his body, cooling down his greed and quickly pushing back his blasphemous and greedy thoughts as he realised that it was the statue symbolising the dragon god, 'My blessing is helping me greatly. A little bit of gold is not worth losing it together with gaining the ire of the dragon god.'. The holy energy of the statue slowly suppressed his greed.
Instinctual knowledge from his inherited dragon memory immediately started to work, telling him what to do. He slowly walked towards the statue, his eyes looking towards the ground and his hard claws rhythmically clacking against the stone floor.
He stopped when he was right next to the statue and bit his tongue, letting his blood leak at the shiny golden surface of the statue.
Immediately weird and warm energy spread out with the eyes of the statue turning from unliving golden metallic eyes into real-looking reptilian eyes looking straight at him.