Adventures of Jessa: the Adventures Continue

18

As their caravan comes into sight of the city there are many that start to relax their guard. Jessa and her guard heighten it. 

The city guards look askance at the female that is drenched in blood and those of her retinue. It isn't unknown for caravans to have some of the guards at least have some blood, but they've never seen any one that came to their gates looking like they had bathed in it. All her guards and the elven prince himself are covered in blood, not to the extent that Jessa is, but it is very obvious that they'd been in a rather large fight.

The guards send a message off once they find out where the blood covered strangers will be staying.

They also send out men to look for the dead that were sure to be left behind.

When the report comes back the guards are wide eyed with shock that such a small group took on such a large amount of people. There were many that didn't believe and so they had the magic user among them show every one what they witnessed. The legend of the fighting abilities of the elves grew.

Jessa and her group wanted nothing more than hot baths and warm food after their journey. Especially the baths. Jessa hates being covered in blood, but she is pleased that she now has the protection of the white dragon on her armor and the breath weapon on her sword.

She now has all of them: lightning from the blues, fire from the reds, acid from the blacks, gas from the greens, and now cold from the white. Of course she also has fire from the golds, but since she already had fire from the reds it doesn't matter that much.

Now all the chromatic dragon kings are dead, that will help their cause as well. But if those numbers are any indication, they are in trouble. Even her dragon guards had trouble with the kin and they had surprise on their side this time. Most of the blues are likely done, but that still leaves the other dragon kin and the blues aren't completely gone either. At least one of the full dragons that were in that camp was a blue.

There is no way to know what dragon they are kin to and so there is no way of knowing if that group was just one color or of many.

Jessa feels a headache coming on. She hopes that the king of this city doesn't keep her waiting like Roderick had.

Jessa is therefore, pleased to find that there is a messenger from the king talking to Dhiren and Kallen when she joins them in the private dining room that they rented for their stay.

"Jessa, we've been invited to the castle to talk to the king about what is going on." Dhiren tells her once she comes into the room.

Jessa raises her eyebrow at this. "That is much quicker than I had hoped. When is the king wishing to speak to us?"

"We've been invited tomorrow for lunch and to spend the afternoon." Dhiren tells her, pleased as well. Jessa doesn't like waiting indoors and gets very antsy so they spend a lot of time sparring or watching the guards spar.

"Lovely," Jessa says smiling at the messenger.

The messenger smiles back and gives her a half bow and leaves.

"Jessa, I've made contact with the bronze dragon leader. She will speak with you tomorrow after your sparring practice. She wishes to see you in action against your guards and Dhiren." Angelo tells Jessa after dinner that night.

Jessa lifts her eyebrow in question. "She agreed to meet with me?"

"She agreed to watch you go against the guards and Dhiren. After that she will talk to you, how much she will say, that I don't know. She was more than a little impressed by the deaths of the kings. That might be enough to have her listen to you. You will have to be very persuasive though. She's a bit ornery."

Dhiren and the others chuckle at him saying that Jessa will need to be persuasive.

"What, I can be persuasive." Jessa says confused at their reactions.

"Yes, we are all well aware of how well you can persuade people. You persuaded Kallen to lose his anger at humans when you were just hours old. You persuaded me the same thing as you were growing up and when you showed me that I wasn't the best fighter. You've persuaded several other leaders and even the deities to help you and to fight. You are an excellent persuader."

"Then why did you all chuckle at his saying that?" Jessa asks still confused.

"Because, Jessa, we believe you won't have a problem persuading the dragon queen to join the fight." Sorsha finally answers her princess.

Jessa just shakes her head. "I'm going to be really busy tomorrow. I won't really have time to do much talking to the bronze leader since I have a previous appointment with the human king. I would sure be a lot easier if they could both meet me at the same time." Jessa says sitting back and rubbing her head as she feels a headache coming on.

There was no way to get the king to change his invitation to them and she highly doubts that the bronze queen would be anything other than offended if she was asked to do so. There are times when Jessa wishes that she could be in two places at once.

"Jessa, you could do a spell and have the human king and the bronze queen meet in a neutral location." Dhiren tells her.

"Right, after I tell the bronze queen that I have to leave so that I can speak to the human king. She's not going to like that at all. I would be upset and from what I hear she is even more touchy about things than I am."

"You might be upset, but you would also understand."

"Yes, I would, but we aren't talking about me are we?" Jessa finally tells him as she lowers her hands. Dhiren goes behind her and starts rubbing her shoulders and neck.

"Angelo, could you go and talk to her and see if she would be willing to change her plans to either meeting with me at another time or coming with me to the castle?"

"Mel," Jessa takes her little friend off her shoulders, "would you go the king and request very politely and slowly that he allow another to come with us to lunch tomorrow. Let him know that she might not come, but if she does that she is very important as well?"

"Of course, Jessa, if that is what you wish." Mel takes off and heads out to the castle to search out the human king that he has no clue what he looks like. But it isn't the first time he's had to find some stranger before and he has never failed yet.

Angelo also takes his leave. He had stared in shock at the appearance of the prismatic dragon when Mel had shown himself. "I had thought our little cousins had all died out."

"Not quite yet they haven't. I'm not sure where the others are hiding but Mel attached himself to my grandfather some time ago. He's helping me out by running messages as you can see."

"I wonder if our smaller cousins, the fairy dragons also survive?" Angelo mumbles to himself even as he leaves to find the bronze queen once more.

He doesn't see how his words affect the other dragons in the room. They all shudder at the thought of their smaller cousins. Looking at Jessa they keep their thoughts to themselves. The last thing they want to do is have Jessa go looking for the fairy dragons. They all hope that they never find out.