Damn... it's been a long little while...

this chapter is short so be warned, but it's really only to FINALLY explain what happened to Oswald, bc screw it, him dying on Vanaheim was a wasted oppurtunity to introduce Drago or another villain. also, how in the world does he end up on Vanaheim?

'he got there by boat and shipwrecked' I hear you say...

well to that, why is he the only one on the island, and if he wasnt and the grim gnashers ate them, why/how did he survive, and why in his notes does he not mention any of them.

'they were killed by the sentinals'

so again... why/how did he survive.

'because he tamed them'

if he did that why did he never manage to escape the island, with dragons help.

so... this is why I've completely scrapped vanaheim and replaced it with my own arc.

*also quick update about my update status*

so basically all my stories are tanking in inspiration,

Prosthetics, I feel has been left at a fairly ok point, it's like an ending that isnt really an end, but its also not a cliff hanger if you know what I mean

F&R really needs to be picked up again, it's like in the middle of my first official story arc.

TaNL has been the most consistently worked on solo story for the last month, although it's taken a break for the last little week or so.

BtG has been finished.

What if has been finished for a long time.

F&R bloopers wont be updated until this story is complete, which is a long way coming.

character list... I really don't know, I shouldn't need one if I can describe my characters well enough. I'll keep it up just... because.

RC has taken a massive break because absolutely no one seems to care about it!

Ark Chronicals, ok, you might not know but me and Isaacplayz are working on an Ark story, I've just been too lazy to start posting, but I am working on it, once I fins the motivation it will be posted on my account, but until I get my fat butt to start updating and yeet my writers block out the window, it will be very slow updates for many of my stories.

anyway, I'm tired, I have another chapter to post, gotta edit it, gotta write the next, but I'm tired, all that will be tomorrow.

also... before I get too tired... CHAPTER 40! this is amazing!

Chapter 40- "Drago's fort."

(Gobber's perspective)

"Gobber!"

"No lad… I'm not hiding Hiccup and his friends here…" I sighed to Snotlout.

"And how do I know you aren't lying?" he threatened

"Because there is no way even Gobber would support them, they ride dragons, the very creatures to steal him of his limbs." Astrid spoke up.

After their last interaction, Astrid's vendetta against Hiccup only increased. She now scoured through his back room trying to hunt him down. So much so that she hates him nearly as much as Snotlout does.

I ignored them bicker (mostly Snotlout making the most absurd claims, with Astrid calmly but irritatedly disproving them.) as I continued banging with my hammer.

Stoick stumbled by the shop on his way from the great hall to his house.

Ironically due to missing the chance to interact with his son due to alcohol, he now turns to drowning his depression in it. Hearing it all from word of mouth didn't help either… nor did the context.

Hearing your only son returns home, allied with your worst enemies, gets captured, and later escapes, with the help of your Coworker is not a great thing to hear as you wake up from a hangover.

The once peaceful (among the villagers) island had now become a war island, every occupation was tied to battle preparations, everyone with blacksmithing experience made ballistae, catapults and weapons out the wazoo, fishers were going out and bringing in more to bait the dragons, warriors were sparring well into the night, farmers were working their plots as hard as possible to provide food for the warriors.

This caused a problem as all the fishermen and farmers saw all the perks warriors got, and so they left their original occupations to become soldiers. This left a deficit of (as Hiccup put it) 'bread making vikings' and an increase in tired, exhausted warrior mouths to feed.

The twins, being friends with Snotlout and supporting him were never punished for any explosions or fires they caused, and since they didn't really have Hiccup to blame them on for about a year, and they knew they'd get in trouble… It seems they have about a year's worth of troublemaking to unleash in as little time as possible.

(Cami's perspective)

Regardless of Valka's warnings about Drago, we began making preparations to encounter Drago, Ziggerastica's spies had found a large camp, bigger than the ones they'd been captured in, and bigger than all the others they'd seen. Presumably this was sort of the home base for Drago.

The nano dragons, being among the smartest dragon species, created a miniature representation of the base's design, with a large singular tower in the middle, with 4 smaller towers around it, between each of the 4 towers seemed to be a wall. In the base were several dragons, the model was too small for them to mimic the shape of the dragon, so we had to go off their description to determine which species they were. The plan was for Hiccup and Toothless to knock down the central tower, hopefully crushing a second tower or the wall as it fell. This would gather any guard dragons, which Nurse and Avery would deal with. I would be dropped into the falling tower as Hiccup and Toothless flew over it after blasting it. I would then try and find Drago or Oswald. According to the Nano Dragons, the central tower was entirely metal, so it wouldn't crumble as stone or wood would, but it would toppel. Meanwhile Shipwreck and Thuggory would harass the harbour and split their forces. The Nano Dragons would be split amongst each of us, with me and Thuggory getting the majority as we had the potentially hand to hand combat roles. And because Ziggerastica seemed slightly more loyal to Thuggory than any of the rest of us.

Heather, would be flitting between the 4 of us and providing help wherever and however she could.

The next evening, we had ditched the feeding about half way through, fortunately the feeding location wasn't too far from the base.

We then were hovering above the cloud cover over the base.

I sat behind Hiccup and Thuggory had flown off to come back for an aquatic entrance, he was waiting for Toothless to knock down the tower, everyone else had the same order; the first hit was the tower.

Hiccup guided Toothless into a dive and blasted the tower's base. It slowly creaked and began to topple. Toothless, being… Toothless decided to show off and fly up through the falling tower's top, depositing me on the top floor as he flew through the tower! Somehow we managed it and I was inside the tower.

I climbed 'down' the tower, which was now sideways. So I was literally walking on the walls.

The floor had become the walls, and the stairwell was essentially my doorway. I had to climb up an' over, and around an' under the spiralling staircase.

A few 'levels down' I found a meeting room, inside I found a dark skinned man trapped in the rubble, he was struggling to free himself, he didn't see me but he did hear my footsteps on the metal.

"Well c'mon help me!" he cried, assuming I was someone who would do that.

"You're not Oswald." I answered

He whirled around as best he could with both legs trapped under a giant pile of what looked to be Rumblehorn bones.

"Who er' you?" he threatened cautiously.

"Someone."

"Someone…" he said leadingly in a deep quiet voice.

"Someone searching for Oswald."

"The agreeable?" he asked incredulously

"Yes, now tell me everything, if you ever want to tell anyone anything ever again." I threatened him with my dagger.

"Heh heh heh…" he chuckled/wheezed.

"Oswalds been dead… for a long time, and only now is his daughter coming to search for him?!" he mocked.

"...I'm not related to him." I answered after absorbing the fact that he was dead.

"You don't believe me, I watched with my own eyes as he was executed by Drago himself." he laughed.

"'E even gave me his dragon." he said gesturing at the bone pile trapping him.

"Good ol' Bone Snarl. A mighty steed indeed. That is until he went ballistic when Oswald was executed. That's when we put him to death. His meat along with others was used to feed Liberator…" he said.

"Hehe… Drago doesn't take kindly to interlopers in his plans sweety, why don't you just run along and tell good ol' Ms agreeable, 'her husband will not be coming home...'" he mocked.

I snapped to my senses when one of the Nanodragons whom I'd forgotten about whispered in my ear

'Shall we kill him?'

I shook my head, both in response and reeling at what I'd heard and sprinted back. Once at the 'top' of the tower I climbed out one of the windows, which was now a skylight. And was soon picked up by Heather's timberjack.

I was surprised to see that the saddle was empty.

"So, what'd you learn?" her voice asked from behind me.

I jumped and whirled around just in time to see her fighting two guards while standing on the timberjack, one was high kicked over my head and off the timberjack.

The other was quickly kicked in the groin, he toppled and rolled off the massive wing.

She turned and swept the hair out of her face.

"I… umm… he's dead. Drago killed him years ago."

She sighed.

"I hoped he was alive, but knew it was unlikely." she admitted.

"At least I no longer have to wonder…" she finished as she sat in the saddle.

"I wonder how Dagur will take it." I muttered.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." she answered.

We then flew straight up, this was basically the signal that I'd been retrieved and it was time to go.

Toothless flew up and flew alongside us. Nurse quickly followed after putting a Crimson Goregutter to sleep. And finally Shipwreck lived up to his name, bursting out of the deck of his seventeenth shipwreck of the battle.

We quickly flew away before any of the guard dragons had a chance to follow us.

short because next chapter deals with another place, and following my theme of one place/tribe per chapter that's part of the Oswald arc ended in this short chapter, i know the berk part screws it up, but it adds to the length, reveals the conditions of berk after the last time we saw the which has some pretty big effects that you were probably wanting to know.

so... while it is 12:56 in the morning here, my brain doesnt have the time, energy or motivation to come up with a random question, night yall