Dragon Hunter

Chapter 24: Plan B

The two of them spent the rest of the morning knocking together a plan of attack, with a couple breaks to get intimately reacquainted delightfully interrupting their efforts. At the end of the planning, while they still had intel incoming, Cooper found himself pretty satisfied as he looked at what they had jotted down on sheets of parchment.

"This is pretty tight, Alia," he said, nodding to himself. "Very do-able."

"Helps having you as the centerpiece, Cooper," Alia replied as she rolled up a couple of the maps she wanted to bring with them, including the web map they first looked at. Twisting them into a tight tube, she tucked them into a cylindrical carrier, complete with a lid to keep them safe and dry.

The noriquien woman then turned towards him. With her shirt still untucked and her tunic and shirt unlaced from their last break in the planning, the Guardian captain was showing a significant amount of skin and cleavage as an indicator of just how extremely comfortable and at ease she was with the big human.

"Having seen you obliterate an entire dragon wing, I can't imagine you being even more powerful with this relic you have mentioned." Her expression became a curious one.

"Just what is this relic, anyway? And what kind of power does it truly possess?"

"I haven't even seen pictures, but I have a book that calls it the Crown of Oberon," Cooper revealed. And, as he did so, he realized just how comfortable he had become with Alia as well, to so easily give up that information to an elf.

Although Cooper would also be the first to admit the difference between the high elves and the dark elves in how they perceived and interacted with humans was night and day. Granted he was also the Dragon Hunter, so there was a built-in positivity to their perception. But nowhere here, amongst the Noriquien, had he encountered the prejudice, both subtle and overt, as well as the bias against humans he had felt in his admittedly brief encounter with the Vaen.

And so, he found himself telling Alia what little he knew.

"According to that book, it could make entire dragon wings disappear at once!"

"At once?" Alia's eyes flew wide as she considered that. "Okay, I pull back my words. That would make you more powerful! Much, much more powerful!"

She then frowned.

"Crown of Oberon, though," she said, her expression intent. "I've heard that name before."

"Huh. No shit. Where?" Cooper asked with more than a little curiosity. And here he had thought the name had come from ancient high elf explorers that had reached Earth thousands of years ago where they left their legacy behind in the form of myths and legends.

Alia folded her arms as she searched her memories.

"The Keffi Ark Monastery, I think. On Kulda'ark, another noriquien dragon world."

"Like Kaliban?"

"Exactly like." She frowned. "I was training there, with the monks, as I was preparing to enter service with the Guardians many years ago. On a study day, I found myself in the monastery's old library. Books there from thousands of years ago."

Alia looked at Cooper, a sculpted white brow lifted.

"The librarian was an old dragon in were-form. He suggested a section of the library I had never been to before for my daily reading. A book I found there mentioned a Crown of Oberon."

"Can you remember anything else, Alia? Details about it? Maybe a possible resting place?" Cooper pressed, electric excitement surging through him.

Could this be real? Could he really be finding a clue about the Crown's whereabouts on a noriquien world in the Garden??