Chapter 7: C7
The first punch was thrown by Quilon but sailed just barely above Ymall's head, leaving a trail in the air. Ymdall slipped around Quilon's side and pushed out a palm causing Quilon to pitch forward but not stumble like a drunk. Ymdall barely avoided damaging his elbow and shoulder from the rebound of hitting what felt like steel.
Quilon responded by pivoting quickly and throwing out faster punches. At the same time, Ymdall swayed out of the way of, with a series of martial art techniques which prioritised the protection of the head and chest while enabling the combatant to be extremely combative. If you are wondering why it doesn't protect the back, well, does Quilon have arms on his back or eyes on the back of his head? No, so how would he protect his back? By never having an enemy behind him, but always in front of him, that's how.
As you could probably tell, Ymdall was losing this exchange, badly. Usually, the shin and elbow would be used to block and redirect force, but compared to a Dragonkin, Ymdall was not as conditioned, and a single impact would severely hinder his movement, and cause bruising or fractures. But it wasn't as if Ymdall was swept up in Quilon's rhythm, it was the other way round. Ymdall pushed and pulled, causing Quilon to reset his stance or almost stumble, but by that point, it was already over.
One on one fights, have several key factors, stamina, resilience and observation. Ymdall wasn't as drained as his opponent, he was sweating buckets, but he could still nimbly move about. His moves weren't as telegraphed whereas Quilon's were. But the damage Ymdall could do was limited, or so you would assume. Ymdall manoeuvred through a volley of punches, pulling Quilons arm back, removing his guard, and then smashing a palm into his chin. When he started to stumble, Ymdall then punched him in the nose and then slapped below his ears into a cluster of nerves, and with a thud, Quilon fell onto the floor. However, Quilon was still conscious, dizzy, but conscious, so Ymdall rested while Quilon recovered.
"Boy, who taught you to fight and how old are ya?"
"My dad, and I am four years old."
"As Strong as a dragonkin laddy, you'll make a great warrior someday. Don't get arrogate thou, I would have beaten you if I had not been so exhausted and had debuffs on me."
"I don't want to be a warrior thou."
"What? Then what do you want to be? A battlemage?"
"Sorta."
"Haha, we have a few flame battlemages that can teach you if you want."
"I don't want to be a flame mage."
"A water mage? (shakes head) A wind mage? (shakes head) Light? (shakes head) Dark? (shakes head) Earth? (Shrugs.) What does a shrug mean, what profession of an earth mage are you aiming for?"
"I want to be a golem-mancer."
"A what?"
"A mage who uses Earth constructs to fight, while out of danger."
"Then why are you so good at fighting if you want to be a glorified sculptor?"
"I will model their movements after myself."
"Tch, fine I won't argue with you, you have so far proved yourself proficient in combat, considering our battle and the corpse over there. Now that I have recovered let's go help the others and see how old Caecus' is."
Quilon shakily stood up, but once he was up, he was steady like a mountain.
"Do you not want any ointment, you are pretty banged up as well."
"Are you gonna go back on your word of leaving my healing last if I resisted you? Anyway, we need to rescue Medicus, she can remove our debuffs, and is our key asset. We better heal up the others since they probably have Medicus heavily guarded and some of the enemies are stronger than they look."
"I didn't ask. But who are they?"
"Don't know? They knocked the older generation out with drugs, but from the details that the younger ones told me during the start of our captivity, they have strong professionals. They know how to exploit weaknesses from using restraining wire, to using martial arts focused on winding the opponent and sending him to the ground, where he will be incapacitated."
Several minutes later, all the dragonkin had been rescued from their cages, but unlike Quilon, the others seemed to be entirely out of it. This was solved through a combination of healing ointment and an extremely diluted high-grade healing potion, diluted by mixing the potion with water and using cups to douse the injured in the remaining solution. After a while, there was a small gathering of recovered dragonkin, each giving me their thanks.
"Thanks for helping us Laddy.""We heard your conversation with Quilon, my lord, and we are willing to provide assistance.""Lord, it is unfortunate that many of us are weakened, but the older generation here, and one or two of the younger ones are proficient in the old system of magic. And as far as we can tell, the debuff is a class skill, but it does not belong to the old system of spells, so it isn't as impactful to our combat system as the assailants believe."
"Lord, have you seen Gemma?"
One of the more elderly asked me this question after tapping and shaking each member and touching their faces. Is he blind?
"Sir, please forgive Caecus he is blind, on his behalf, have you seen a small girl with white hair?"
"Her?"Pointing to the corner near to where the boxes were stacked"Gemma!"
With a sense of floatiness, the old man glided over to the little girl and started to check her for any injuries. He is unlikely to find any as I checked her over earlier, but you never know. Their names made me curious since the names matched them perfectly, but I would probably have to wait for Gemma to be looked over as all of the Dragonkin seemed genuinely concerned, and not up to converse.
"Phew, glad Caecus's grand-daughter is safe, one of the basta*ds from the Traditor clan must have told the assailants where she was located and her 'worth'. Since you faced Quilon one on one unarmed, and are trustworthy, let me make you privy. Gemma has two skills despite her age, Dryads compendium of poisons and medicines, and gem creation. Both converted by many."
"Hmm. I wanted to ask you why your names match you so perfectly in Latin togue? Was Caecus born blind?"
"Our names were given by the Naturae Goddess, who sees all and knows all, and controls nature. Caecus was not born blind, but after he became of age, he prepared to go blind. A few years later an unknown disease flared up in the village, and everyone, but Caecus recovered unharmed. As you can probably infer, he went blind during that incident. And even with all his training in preparation for the transition, he became depressed beyond reason. That did eventually change, but I will let him tell you at his own discretion."
"Wait, so what if someone is born with a bad name?"
"The Traditor clan could be said to be a bunch of traitors, but traditor also means teacher and they were true to that namesake for many centuries, which is unfortunate as when we get back, hell will be coming through."
Gemma seemed conscious as a high pitched shout was released.
"Grandfather!" "Gemma, I am glad you are ok.""Grandfather what did those filthy humans do to you, once we get out we should give em a piece of our mind. Plus we need to give the Traditor clan their just deserts."
*Cough*
"You, you filthy human, die!"
Claws extended, Gemma attempted to stab me in the heart, but I grabbed her wrist and twisted it behind her back before pushing her to the ground and placing a knee against it. Before she could speak up, Quilon spoke.
"Lass. Have we not taught you the difference between good and evil, if there was something wrong with him do you think he would be standing there unharmed?"
"No uncle Quilon."
I released Gemma and got up. Standing up, she turned and huffed before walking to her Grandad and conversing. Being wary of a pursuit party due to the dead guard, I unlocked the door and peeked every few minutes. After half an hour, all the dragonkin were conscious and supposedly fit for combat.
"So are we ready to retaliate or staying here to get caught?"
"Ready, of course.""Ready.""Ready." "Let's go."
"Just a heads up, I am unsure exactly where we are going but anywhere is better than here, and we might even stumble open a guard who we can interrogate."
"Caeser can you locate Medicus?"
"~Locate Object..."
"Got a hit on her mind stone Caeser?"
"No, some of the walls might contain lead, or the object has been taken 1000 feet away, I will try something else."
"~Locate creature~."
"Found her, let's go this way. If there are obstacles we can just blast and smash are way through any walls."
Walking through the stone corridors again, we marched forward. Gemma and myself at the back, Caeser, Quilon and a few others at the front. It's strange that there have been no patrolmen, but there is no need to fuss over a future problem.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Writer_1
Writer_1 Sorry for the long delay. I have been extremely busy. Here is the chapter, well, 3/3 of it. Thanks again to egusas for the firestones. (They don't mean anything until the novel gets to a 15,000-word count, but they tell me that at least one person reads this.) Also if you don't see the update you can refresh the novel by removing it from the library then adding it back. Thanks again for the support.
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