◈ Chapter 147:
A dog trotted its way through the camp on the plain.
It was a boiling hot summer's day and the sun beat down relentlessly, not even a breeze to stir the endless long grass stretching to the distant horizon. The sounds of millions of crickets making their home in the grasses made the air buzz, creating a low constant music below the sounds of the camp's own: Mindless chattering, the crash of metal against metal from cooks and smiths, the clop of hooves on dirt. The camp on the plain lived and managed like any other day.
For the most part, the dog was ignored, it was after all just a dog, even if its coat was of an unusual colour.
But then there were always those in a community who wanted to pet a dog.
A small centaur child with the upper body of a gnoll approached. She wasn't much larger than the dog itself, but that didn't stop her from raising her hand, raised and ready in child-like petting mode. She smiled as her hand came down, completely innocent of the idea that petting a strange dog could be dangerous.
The dog considered the child, her chubby hand nearing. Then it began to open its mouth. There was one simple way to teach the dangers of strange dogs, and the dog was of the opinion the more permanent the lesson the better.
The dog's razor sharp teeth and the child's hand moved into a collision course, the dog's mouth about to snap shut around small fingers.
"CLARA!!"
The child paused and turned, an adult centaur staring down at her from where they leaned out from a tent flap.
"What are you doing? Get away from that thing!"
The child huffed but moved toward the tent, stomping inside as the fabric flapped shut behind.
"..."
The dog slowly closed its mouth.
Perhaps that had been the better result in the end. Sometimes it was difficult to control the more wild impulses of being a demonic dog.
Still, if there was any place in the world to lose a limb this was it. That was true enough that the child might not have even learned her lesson.
The dog snorted but then moved on, carrying on through the camp.
Of the camps many tents one stood out more than any other. Mostly because it was very large. Its white canvas sheets towered above the other tents and ragged cloth pennants flopped down across its exterior, limp in the windless heat.
The dog pushed its head through the flap and slipped inside.
The interior was plush, with thick incredibly intricate rugs embroidered and piled across the ground. The air was cool too, nothing like the exterior, the temperature apparently controlled through some trick or other.
Much of the interior of the tent wasn't visible as it had been partitioned into separate 'rooms' with curtains, although the one he had emerged into was most definitely in use.
"Don't go wandering around the camp Bane, I don't want to be forced to make more threats if you cause an incident."
The inquisitor was there, sat slumped on a chair, her long legs casally spread, one elbow hooked over the backrest. Her other arm wasn't visible from this angle, it rested on the table beside her and a small privacy curtain had been erected masking most of the limb from view.
No less than six gnoll centaurs sat at the table beyond the curtain, working furiously on whatever it was they were doing to her maimed arm.
"After we caught up with the refugees and I understood what you did and what they were fleeing from, well you're lucky I didn't collar and leash you right then and there, and I might still if you push me, so heed what I command. Summoning a Suc-'' she glanced to her side recalling the centaurs who were tending to her, "Summoning what you did and unleashing it on the town of Lynthia is enough for me to execute you ten times over."
The dog tilted its head at her in question.
"The only reason you still live is because I believe the wolf monster to be a much more significant threat. There isn't a one of what you summoned capable of doing what was done to Lynthia. I dread to think of such a thing unleashed on a populated city and not an abandoned town."
The dog nodded its head in agreement, although the dog doubted the inquisitor understood what succubi were really capable of.
"Bane! Get your mutt ass in here!"
The dog turned to see the one adult centaur of the camp who was happy to see him, her head poking from one of the partition curtains.
"We're finished you know. Come see! Come see!"
He trotted through the curtained partition after her and the dog found itself standing on sand. The plains from what the dog had seen were all long grasses which made this space unusual. The clan of centaurs had apparently gone to the effort of hauling large quantities of pristine white sand from somewhere and carefully raking it across the floor of the tent creating a soft yet level surface.
The large thing created for the dog, which had apparently just been finished, lay on this pristine white sand. ...The thing didn't look like anything useful at all if the dog was honest. Spars of metal, seemingly random shapes, curved plates, gears and rods, most of which couldn't be seen because a huge blob of reflective steel had been poured over it, the thing coalescing into a perfect sphere amongst the apparent frame beneath of which only bits poked out.
The centaur practically pranced as she waited for the dog's reaction.
The dog considered what he was looking at. It looked like some maniac of an artist's drug fueled binge of a sculpture if the dog was honest.
"What? You don't trust it? I know, I know, threatening us with death by Dragons doesn't exactly make for the most honest of business relationships. But c'mon Bane, it's me, we've always been close, we dove countless dungeons together. I get what happened with the level cap and why you quit, and ya know, I don't like seeing you like this, like a mindless animal. I would never let the sacred crafters do something sneaky like."
The dog glanced at the centaur, considering her in the same way it considered the metal structure.
After a moment the dog let out a sigh of resignation, it seemed it had no choice.
The dog lifted a paw and pressed it down onto the sand in front of it. Then it began to move, making circles, jagged lines, geomatrices and runes. The dog lifted its paw away as it finished and the thing radiated a red light before melting away as if it had never been there.
