That morning the Boys and the Zacathans awoke to find that Dad had arrived in his steel blue full plate armour via the teleporter. Dad was in a rage. Dad had suspected that while the road would pose no trouble for us, the towns might, and for some reason this town in particular. So there had been other watchers besides Kilgarath on watch duty. Both Liam and Kilgarath had nearly descended to chastise (or cook) the guards. Liam had then told Dad what had happened the night before. Dad gave us the copies of His armour that he had created in the enchanted forge together with padded underclothing with linen shirt and short ruff. The Boys had something to eat while Dad talked to the Zacathans, then Trian morphed into human form and the Boys got dressed, putting their leather suits into their back packs. Leo and Trian had steel blue armour while Rex had steel red armour, this colour suiting Rex's John Ross Ewing temperament. The short ruff showed around the gorget neckline just as in the Elizabethan Yeomen of The Guard. The armour came complete with visored helmet (to open, the visor was dropped instead of raised), a dragon shield to hang on the back, a dagger and a shocking mace. Although Dad's Dragon Fire Sword looked great, the Shocking Mace was preferable - crush an opponents armour, electrocute and beat the crap out of his body, but not hack the body open. Incapacitate but leave alive. Dad gave the Boys some silver crowns for supplies and services, telling them to beware of thieving Kadjiit, and said that He would sort out the Zacathans. Dad them morphed into dragon form and grew, huge.
Flying up into the air and then descending on the terrified gate guards, what followed was a vitriolic conversation which may be politely summarised as :
"You pathetic excuses for human vermin go tell your imbecile of a Guard Commander and fat excuse for a Town Governor to haul their sorry asses up here and see me now"
"Failure to comply will result in the towns hot water running cold, cold water running hot, deactivation of the trading portals, burning down the Keep and Great Hall, and a plague of Gremlins"
For good measure Dad burnt down the town gates.
Some time later the Guard Commander and the far from fat Town Governor, a Baron, arrived. Both acted indignantly as if there was nothing wrong. They undoubtedly thought that, but it just infuriated Dad. Dragons expect respect. Dragons demand respect. Without the dragons constant intervention, the local ecosystem and town sanitation and supply system would collapse. Dad, after a stream of caustic and extremely vulgar comments, then informed them that His three youngest hatchlings had been denied admittance and threatened, and the visiting Zacathans had also been treated insultingly and threatened. Just to push the point home, Dad did a Darth Vader throat squeeze on both of them and demanded that the Governor provided the Boys with horses when they left town. Why? The Boys did not know one end of a horse from the other end, now motorbikes they did know. Dad telepathed the Boys that horses could be mind controlled like the dogs. The gate guards and their superiors were to be put in the stocks.
Dad backed away and went over to the teleporter where He sat down. The Boys went into the town, followed by the Zacathans who wanted to see what was inside. The guards kept well out of their way now. The Guard Commander and the Baron beat a hasty retreat. The pair were sub-operant telepaths, so the Boys telepathically sensed that they were trying to concoct covering excuses to sell to a (hopefully) gullible populace.
Wandering round the town with the Zacathans, the Boys found significant differences from the other town. The military buildings were bigger and more complex. More guards and better armour. No scriptorium or mages guild, and as many armourers as blacksmiths - and there were more blacksmiths. There were even horses and segnos being ridden in the town, and mucking up the streets too. Obviously this was a military, brawn, town while the other town was a university, brain, town. The Boys managed to get the gist of what was being said about them from a Spellsword buying some potions.
The tale was that apparently the Boys were Spellswords belonging to some well established, well connected, but reclusive family that specialised in advanced magic. The Boys had been rased in another island, so knew neither the local language or etiquette, and so should be avoided and not insulted. The Spellsword thought that the tale sounded plausible, but doubted that such a reclusive family existed in this island. He had heard the rumours of the Mad Dragon frying the north gate, and suspected that the real tale was more like we were envoys from the other, rival, town, perhaps doing an errand for a dragon. The Baron was doing a cover up to save face and points. The Boys told him that they were baby dragons, and had been denied entry along with the Zacathans. The Mad Dragon was their Daddy. The Spellsword left to get a more correct rumour mill going.
A Junior Spellsword then came up to the Boys. Compared to the guards in the other town, he was heavily armoured, having a steel plate cuirass over his chain mail shirt, and half plate grieves suitable for riding. Unusually he had an arcane hairline and buzz cut hair just like the Boys. This suggested that he was related to the Boys by the rare female line of descent. He said that he was serving as a squire to the Barons oldest son, and belonged to an outlying branch of the family. He needed to attend at the jousts, otherwise he would be happy to show the Boys and the Zacathans round.
The Boys noticed some Dwarves selling in the market. Now Dwarves are not your amiable Enchanted Forest Dwarfs, but thieving axe toting vermin. Elves may be arrogant smart arses but they don't steal. Dwarves break into dragon's vaults, steal equipment and either soil or trash the rest. The Boys approached the Dwarves and realised from their technomagical goods that they were actually Dweamer Elves, once common in north-eastern Tamriel. One of the Dweamer was a minor telepathic psychocreator, so the Boys learned that they had been allowed to settle on an outlying island, and travelled here by portal to sell dwarven weapons, armour, and technical devices like telescopes and machine tools.
Outside the town's south gate was a fair and tournament ground. On closer inspection, the fair ground was more of an open air market and practice area, with training services for sale. Several armour repairers were present together with stalls selling general purpose pieces of armour - fitted armour or garnitures (general purpose armour sets using additional pieces), required going to an armourer or good blacksmith. Some of the armour being sold was partly bronze and looked Hellenic.
The tournament ground was also being used for practice jousting. Every male there was in some sort of armour: leather, chain mail or plate; a few people were wearing Hellenic armour. The Boys full plate armour was not highly ornamented like some there, but was clearly of the best design and highest quality. The Boys armour also had spiked elbows and knees with gauntlets, not gloves, and was chased with mithril. Such armour would be worth a small fortune, but the Boys armour was multiply enchanted to reduce weight and strengthen it, so it was worth a King's Ransom.
Wandering round the Boys proceeded to encounter some young bucks who thought too much of themselves. Undoubtedly they had family connections with the local Baron, and were wanting to impress. The Boys problem was that they didn't know how to wear armour correctly and were carrying their packs around, which looked silly. Only in computer games do you have an invisible (and infinite) inventory. It was apparent that the young bucks were having a good laugh at the Boys expense. When the chief buck stepped up to Leo, sniggered, and gave Leo a poke, it was time to act.
Leo punched the buck in the chest. This should have done nothing as Leo was not that strong, and was not positioned to have maximum advantage. However, Leo's psychokinesis and Trian's creativity was backing the punch up. The bucks expensive steel cuirass weakened and caved in, while the buck was sent straight backwards, into and along with his friends, who were then pinned to the ground by Leo's and Rex's psychokinesis. The Boys then fire flayed the bucks, not enough to badly burn them, but Trian used reversed redaction to make their nerves more sensitive to heat. The bucks screamed as if they were being burned alive. With the bucks incapacitated, Leo concentrated on morphing himself and his armour, and then sprayed venom into the eyes of the chief buck. Ouch.
Next the Boys had to deal with the onlookers, as their clairvoyantly had sensed trouble. The fairground guards had taken exception to the Boys defending ourselves and were moving in. Leo attempted to dissuade them, but most ignored his open jaw hissing and wing flapping display. So the idiots ended up being tossed in the air, and coming down with painfully loud crunch's.
The question was, what now? Trian decided to try and recall all that he knew about Daedric Summoning Incantations from his scroll creation work in Storybrooke. Being able to summon a Scamp would upset any normal aggressors, while summoning any type of Atronatch would terrify them. Enemy mages were another matter. The Boys were mad, they were the aggrieved party, the Baron having done nothing to prevent this, just spreading lying rumours to cover his arse of a reputation. The Boys all decided to morph into dragon form as a precaution. Although they would have to hold their shields, their packs could be sling under their chests. Inelegant though. So, horses. The Boys went through the fairground and found a Battlemage, and telepathically loudly demanded that he deliver a verbal message to the livery stables :
"Baron ordered by our Father, THE Dragon Lord, to provide three horses. Horses to be available when we leave town. Cost to be paid by The Baron. Failure to comply == Livery Stables burnt to the ground, Baron to be made into kebabs for poor Argonians"
The Battlemage scurried of to deliver the message.
Quite a few other people in the fairground had picked up the message too; the rumour mill got working again. People cowered even more when the Boys approached them. They spent the rest of the day watching tournament practice while the Zacathans went back to the town. One of the aspiring knights at jousting practice was the Junior Spellsword relation the Boys had seen in the town, who asked if the Boys wanted to face him in combat practice. The Boys pointed out that they had neither horses or experience, except in magic, and even there they were learners. However, the Boys would definitely appreciate his assistance as a translator. He replied that he would join the Boys later.
In the meantime Dracos, Alex and Liam had been monitoring the entire sorry affair. The fight at the fairground was the last straw. The Baron had to go. The Barony was actually elective among the extended family members, and was not hereditary, while Dracos had a final veto on appointments, although with dragons not being good at politics, Dragon Lords rarely intervened. For now, Dracos contented himself with teleporting a Gremlin minion into the Halls council chamber maṇḍala with a written message for the Baron that went :
"Complaint : My Boys have been assaulted by thugs at the fair ground"
"Complaint : My Boys were then assaulted by the guards at the fair ground"
"Thugs and Guards to spend a week in the stocks"
"Demand : The Zacathan envoys need an immediate escort"
"Demand : My Boys require 3 horses for when they leave"
"Until all demands are met, Gremlins will trash the Great Hall and the Fort"
A small army of armed Gremlins was now hard at work tearing the Fort to pieces, while the Great Hall's basement was filling with scalding water from new geysers as the geothermal water supply went haywire.
The Baron was out of his depth. The best he could manage was to send the message to his eldest son, who was practising at the tournament fairground. Naturally HE was the big buck who had assaulted the Boys. Fortunately his squire was able to take charge, a certain Junior Spellsword aspiring to be a Knight. He knew that his master was not really bad, just too arrogant, and badly needed taking in hand. Using the implicit authority of the message, he told the rest of the guards that the Boys were the youngest sons of The Dragon Lord and to be protected from troublemakers. Then he told the livery stables to arrange for the horses. Then he went to the Hall and sought out the resident Mage, who was trying to keep out of the way of the Gremlins, and told him to find someone to act as interpreter for the Zacathans and find them accommodation. He was hoping that if his Lord, companions and the guards had been hurt enough, The Dragon Lord might overlook the stocks; perhaps a stay in the dungeons would suffice. He returned to the Boys and asked them if Dracos might be amenable. The Boys were not into politics either, but saw that clemency might be wise, and a private incarceration would serve better than public humiliation. Shortly afterwards, the Gremlin plague abated and the errant geysers ran dry.
The Junior Spellsword suggested to the Boys that as his family had a town house, the Boys could stay there before moving on. It would also be a well administered snub to the Baron. He also suggested that while the Boys were in town, he should arrange for them to be taught how to move correctly in their armour. The town's reason to be was martial, providing troops if needed, while the other town provided mages and other specialists. However. it was also earned a vital profit from it's most expensive entertainment side - jousting.
Jousting was really just expensive feudal entertainment, and everyone loved to see it. The fairground provided daily martial training services in the use of sword, shield, quarter staff and other kinds of weapons and armour. The tournament ground was used for jousting, group combat, and gladiatorial practice, with more serious weekend sessions, sort of the local team at play along with spectators. Each month there were more serious matches, and every quarter there were the Quarterly Jousting Championships along with group combats and gladiatorial matches.
There were two competing gladiator schools somewhere near an out of the way village towards the coast, stocked by dungeon acquired slaves although anyone could sign up for a 5 year indenture. Just as people owned shares in race horses, they could also buy shares in gladiators, or jousting teams. The other town also had a tournament ground and gladiator school, but by comparison they were amateur or hobby affairs; the tournament ground was for practice and friendly combats while the gladiators were volunteers with a stiffening of gladiator slave rejects donated by the serious gladiator schools. Enquiring further about the use of slaves, the Boys learned that the economy of this region was heavily dependant on slaves because so much manpower was required for the military, and most slaves had some military background. It sounded more than a little bit like ancient Sparta.
The Boys now felt safe enough to morph back to human form. Later, over dinner, the Junior Spellsword suggested that once the Boys had some basic schooling for reading and writing, they would find that the easiest way to learn all the Dragon Realms customs and etiquette would be by taking service as squires. The Boys didn't know what Dad had planned, other than to leave the US and UK business operations on auto pilot. Dad had talked about visiting Tamriel at some point. And there was also the prospect of visiting the other Dragon Realms nearby (those that Dad was on speaking terms with). And there was the wider world to consider. Nevertheless, Leo quite fancied becoming a Knight and doing Gladiator training, while Rex was more interested in being a villainous Black Knight and a Gladiator than he would openly admit. Trian however, was less convinced. Trian was more sensitive, i.e. relatively delicate. Wearing armour was a lot more fun than fighting in it, and Trian was really quite a placid, if eccentric, dragon. Trian would miss his brothers badly. So would Dad, even though there were Alex's and Liam's children to visit him. Trian also suspected that because it was so dangerous, gladiator training would be a no-no.
