~~~

  As the mysterious female creature danced on the air above them and sprinkled some kind of mana intensive dust on everyone in the dome, Wyrmwood painfully righted himself and observed what she looked like.

  She had a sky blue dress on with long sleeves that hid her hands, spots of gold were sprinkled across the dress in a beautiful, eye-catching fashion. The dress also had a scarf that seemed to connect to the back of it in a subtle fashion, wrapping around her neck to hide the lower half of her face. With a bonnet on her head, all her skin was covered, not revealing any of her true self besides two golden eyes, peeking out from under a mess of light brown curls of hair.

  ??"Fear not little ones! This’ll take but a poof and a jiffy."?? she cooed, swaying back and forth while circling around the roof of the dome.

  As the mana heavy dust particles finally floated down and started settling onto some of the dragons, Wyrmwood had a moment to note to himself that it wasn’t actually dust, but tiny balls of fluff of some kind, similar to the kind of cotton weeds he’d seen in the Draco Forest.

  The moment a certain amount of the fluff settled on a dragon it would suddenly spasm and collapse! To be affected like this by something mana intensive was only possible because every dragon here was both very young and had their magic being constantly drained by the collars around their necks!

  Otherwise, a dragon’s natural mana would dominate all the surrounding mana, making them very resistant to other beings’ spells.

  The quilin roared in rage as the first hatchling to be affected spasmed on the ground! It blasted a cone of bright orange flame up at the female figure flying around, yet she easily swayed out of the way as if he’d aimed at a direction she’d never planned moving to in the first place.

  With Wyrmwood at the edge of the dome, the raining magic fluff had a hard time reaching him. This gave him the opportunity to watch in shock and growing horror as the spasming dragons started to shrink down and change!

  Any dragons with wings shrank down more and more, their wings changing to more insectile forms like butterfly and dragonfly wings as their bodies became tiny elegant humanoids with pointy ears and long, elegant hair. Meanwhile, any dragon without wings shrank to about the size of Bixxy with stringy limbs and gnarly faces. They were being turned into pixies and brownies!

  Clothing materialized magically around the now baby fey as they confusedly growled or cried on the floor. Overwhelmed by the confusing and probably rather painful process happening to them.

  The female figure huffed as it swooped around in the air, still dodging every blast of flame the quilin shot at it.

  ??"Huff, quit fighting it so hard, handsome. It’s not even permanent!"?? she sing-songed. ??"Though, mayhaps it would be better that we take this dance elsewhere. I don’t have time for playing around like this here, and you’re a liability~"??

  Wyrmwood tried to keep the fluff back by breathing his own spores at it, but the fluff and spores just swirled through the air together around him instead! He felt a tingling sensation climb up his limbs as it all began to stubbornly cling to him despite his efforts! Pressing his lengthy still-bleeding body up against the wall, a great discomfort overtook him as his vision darkened. The last thing he saw was another portal opening near the top of the dome’s pillar and the small figure of Smith floating out.

  ~~~

  Smith had been checking the ground in various places around the fort with massive earth-search spells and was coming to a VERY alarming conclusion. His species of beastkin’s natural skittishness was starting to strongly affect him under these constantly increasing tensions.

  “Th-th-th-this is bad! R-really bad!!”

  He’d immediately told the villagers to head for the fort, emphasizing that anyone still there would likely be dead by tomorrow.

  Once he’d affirmed that the villagers were taking him seriously and packing their most precious items, Smith teleported directly into the fort’s hidden dungeon, the place they kept the hatchlings in. He needed to speak with his quilin familiar, Caldera.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Caldera had been the dragon assigned to him by his academy back when he’d started on the path of dragon whisperer. The quilin had been strong even then, but much smaller. He’d had a loyal, no nonsense personality that had helped Smith keep better control of his skittish nature. They had been steadfast companions, the system helping to smooth over any potential miscommunication between them and strengthening their bond.

  Unfortunately, things had changed once the two of them were drafted into the army. Dragons were known to be among the strongest beings on the planet. As such, dragon whisperers were treated as the premier force for each nation’s armies. Sadly for the two, Caldera turned out to not be as unshakable as he’d always made himself out to be. Smith was heartbroken when he’d finally been made aware of his dragon companion’s crumbling morale.

  With his dragon going through the throws of depression, he’d actually been able to step up for once and immediately demanded to be re-assigned. That’s how they’d ended up as hatchling watchers. It was Smith’s hope that helping to raise the young of Caldera's kind would help to soothe the quilin and help him recover.

  Smith shook his head as he stepped through the portal, it wasn’t time to get lost in memories. Too much needed to be done.

  Stepping through to hover high up in the dome, he was shocked at the sight before him! Many of the hatchlings appeared to be missing! Instead, there were very young fey-kind sprawled across the many biomes, magical lint seemed to be raining down in the dome, his quilin companion was having an absolute fit, spewing flames every which way up into the air, and dancing out of the way of said flames was a mysterious feminine figure, dressed in a way that didn’t show any skin.

  Having hopped from one kind of pandemonium to another was making Smith’s head hurt a bit, and he was halfway to freaking out at this point.

  They didn’t have time for this!!! Why hadn’t any of the guards checked with all of this going on?!

  “Wh-Wh- Who are you?!” He stuttered at the figure. His voice rang out clear through the dome thanks to him having magically charged it. Thankfully, Caldera stopped spouting flames for a moment when he heard Smith speak. This also had the figure stop dancing around.

  She turned to him and curtsied. ??"Ahhh, hello, hello prospective applicant! I’d been hoping to find someone to sponsor! Will it be you? A test is in order! So first, an introduction."?? Her voice was excited, yet held an unceasing sing-song tone to it, as if trying to cheerfully direct others.

  Smith cast an identify spell at her.

  Kyoza the tailored nymph, traitor of courts, friend of ___.

  ??"Now, now you cheeky peeker."?? She tittered. ??"I was about to show you that myself. Instead, I’ll give you this."??

  Emergency quest initiated: Stop the-

  Error

  Emergency quest initiated: Reveal the-

  Error

  Warning: Two emergencies in the same area.

  Generating new quest to fit the criteria:

  Emergency quest initiated: Survive and save as many as you can.

  The more lives saved by your actions, the better the reward will be. Good luck.

  The quest appeared to all the beings around the fort (Except for Wyrmwood… and also anyone unconscious for that matter.) Everyone stopped what they were doing to read the disturbing emergence of a potential great threat.

  Smith’s eyes quickly locked onto the frozen still figure of Kyoza, hovering there.

  “What? Why did…” she was mumbling to herself. Her voice, now lacking its sing-song tone, was still beautiful, yet somehow portrayed a hint of cruelty, like the flash of a child’s hidden bruises.

  Suddenly her form wavered and the dress billowed outward as waves of powerful undirected magic rolled off her from her rage, ribbons and knitted tendrils seeming to extend out from gaps and folds in the dress.

  “That STUPID hot-head!!! Did he REALLY set up his trial THIS close to mine?!?!” She fumed with a tone resembling a mother cruelly talking poorly about her troubled child.

  “L-listen ma’am, as you just saw, we don’t have time for this! The nearest part of the mountain range is-“

  Kyoza thrust out a sleeve at him, it somehow extended until it stopped right in front of his face. The insides of the sleeve were dark and hollow in a strange way that made his skin crawl.

  “I’m sure I can guess.” She said sourly.

  Taking a deep breath, her intimidating form and presence retracted back into itself until she looked just like when Smith had arrived here.

  ??"Well then cutie, sorry about all of this, but I’m going to have to leave this party of ours just a little earlier than intended!"?? she said, back in her sing-song tone. ??"Make it through, though, and I’ll make sure to be your generous sponsor! Ohh, lucky you! Ta ta now!"?? and with that, she pulled her head and golden curls into the dress before her presence disappeared entirely. The dress and bonnet suddenly floating emptily towards the ground.

  What did any of that mean?! Smith couldn’t wrap his head around what had happened here! Whatever! He still didn’t have time!

  “Caldera! L-let’s just ignore that f-for now! We need t-to warn th-th-the princess!” He said, floating down to his companion.

  The fluff that was collecting on everything had, thankfully, mostly disappeared along with Kyoza when she’d left.

  “Th-the nearby mountains-“

  Smith was cut off once again when two stealthily dressed elves of all things burst into the dome from the secret door that had been strangely left open.

  “Aha! Vile beasts! You have indeed stolen our young! You will all die for this on this very day!” One of the elf-sassins proclaimed.

  Having enough of being constantly interrupted since he’d teleported here, Smith finally yelled out the immense danger he’d discovered from investigating the earthquakes.

  “The nearby mountain range is going to erupt!!!”

  ~~~