everyone and their brother was curious about the fight that had just occurred, and quite a lot of people were going to have a really bad day. fenrir and kangrim hadn’t exactly been keeping things contained when they wrestled on the ground, and quite a few fields had been utterly wrecked, to say nothing of the final farm where dragon’s blood was dripping onto the fields. in small amounts, it was a potent catalyst, but the dose made the poison. there was a good chance the fields would be unusable for a long time.

    nina came rushing over and threw up a huge illusion over us and the remains of the dragon, cutting away the farmers from the view. the base was a solid dome of bright red covering the entire place, then various rotating symbols went all along the edge. skull and crossbones, ‘ick’ faces, black cats, broken mirrors, red flags, raised rattlesnakes and more were all moving and animated on the surface of the dome, a dozen different symbols from cultures around the world saying stay away. she had another neat trick - we could see from the inside out, but i doubted people could see from the outside in.

    iona and fenrir gently disentangled themselves from the dragon, as auri hovered over them protectively. nina marched up to them, and i drifted a little closer so we could all talk.

    “we cannot let this get out.” the kitsune said. i nodded in agreement. fenrir and iona were still both coming down off the battle-high, plus the dragon''s heart was one heck of a stimulant. auri landed on iona’s wobbling helmet and tilted her head.

    “brrpt?” artemis stepped in as auri asked her question.

    “the story is, we slew a wyvern.” nina stressed, somehow managing to speak only the truth while crafting a thousand lies. “fenrir’s territorial after all. we’ve all seen it. just another scuffle, another monster slain.”

    “you know what happens when we say their name.” artemis agreed. “i propose the same thing that we did in remus, and possibly for the same reason. total ban, total secrecy. not a word gets out about this, not a mention of them to light a flame in their mind’s eye.”

    huh. i suddenly wondered if night had managed to kill a dragon in remus at some point. it wasn’t something to brag about or even mention, but it would explain why the ban was so harsh when mentioning it once or twice didn’t cause any problems... and if we’d managed to kill a dragon back then, there was no way night didn’t have a dozen kills under his gem-studded belt already. plus, that was when night only had two classes.

    iona slowly came out of her daze.

    “what are we going to do with all this?” she gestured to the body, fenrir already looking like he wanted to take a bite. “it’s a treasure trove, are we just going to let it go to waste?”

    everyone except fenrir shook their heads, the wyvern growling unhappily at the idea.

    “harvest it, store it in elaine’s [tower]. hide most of the evidence. elaine, you can run preservation on it, right?”

    “yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem.” i said.

    raccoon came running up a moment later with the three rangers. artemis started barking orders.

    “this is top secret. don’t breathe a word to anyone. we need skye, the most discreet person with the [butcher] skill, and a [tanner] that’s worthy of gaining 200 levels. go.” she ordered the three, who saluted and vanished. my mentor turned to me.

    “elaine, got a good knife or, even better, a skinning setup in that [tower] of yours? learned enough about field dressing animals from all the years... all the years we spent in the hunter’s guild.” artemis almost broke down in the middle there at the mention of julius.

    “i don’t know, i’ll see what i can grab.” i promptly vanished into the [tower], grabbing heaps of sharp tools, and a couple of blunt ones. i then thought about what else we needed, and started to grab as many empty barrels and casks as i could find, debating emptying some of them for more storage. i reappeared a minute later, and iona, nina, and raccoon were already working on manually stripping off the scales and tossing them into a pile. i rolled up my sleeves and joined in.

    the system was no longer reinforcing its body, which made the harvest far easier.

    “raccoon, i need more barrels, casks, anything that can store liquid. beg, borrow, and buy as many as you can get and bring them here.”

    the crafty goblin nodded and sauntered off at a slow pace. i shot a questioning look after her, which was picked up by iona.

    “no!” i protested. “no way!”

    i couldn’t get the image out of my head.

    nina had fun scaring people that weren’t quite getting the hint away with her mirages, intervening before the rangers had to step in and physically bar people. with the size of the body and the space we were occupying, they had to walk briskly to maintain the perimeter.

    “hey foxy!” artemis called out. nina whirled, and unfortunately didn’t know artemis well enough yet to know that grin meant trouble. i’d run screaming if artemis was smiling at me like that.

    “yes? can i help you?” she asked.

    “we’re all going to take a dip in the wyvern’s blood, yeah?” artemis asked. “we’re already halfway there, be a shame not to finish the job.” my mentor looked pointedly at all of nina’s blood-matted fur.

    “yes...” nina cautiously agreed, having some minor self-preservation instincts. she couldn’t have lasted this long as an assassin without a good gut instinct.

    “well, way i see it, you’ve got all that fur, and it’s going to cause you problems. it’s great stuff for keeping the water and the rain off you, but with how it’s getting all clumpy, there’s no way all the blood’s making it to your skin. it’s a huge waste!”

    “right.” nina agreed. “i was thinking something similar. any ideas?”

    artemis managed to smother a wicked grin, and i was starting to think it was time for another [tower] run. make sure everything was well organized. check nothing was going to tip over. triple-check the enchantments. then again, i probably wasn’t going to end up as collateral damage to this prank, and while we were rebuilding civilization, entertainment was in short supply.

    “this is a rare and valuable resource, a once in an immortal lifetime opportunity. fur grows back, wyvern’s blood doesn’t, we should shave you to make sure there’s no huge hole in the protection given.”

    how the fuck did artemis manage to keep an entirely straight face? iona’s neck was bobbing with her suppressed laughter, one hand gripping fenrir’s leg a little too tightly. auri was whistling, beak in the air.

    come on, auri. don’t give away the game. that looked even more suspicious.

    the best way to not be collateral to one of artemis’s pranks was to lean into it.

    “i completely agree.” i piped up. “sure, you’ll look silly today, but two months from now all you’ll remember is your skin being harder than steel.”

    nina looked to iona, who managed to pull herself together in a flash and nod in a stately way.

    “artemis speaks wisdom.” she said as the woman in question drew a knife.

    “now, hold still, this will only take a moment.”

    oh gods, artemis was right. shaved kitsune looked hilarious.