"Something is certainly odd about the whole situation," Taelrurur agrees. "How do plan on going about investigating it?"
"I'm honestly not sure, aside from just going into the woods and having a look around. Which is probably not the best idea, but it's a least a start."
"Perhaps it will give you time to come up with a better idea," Taelrurur grumbles.
You both look around for a while in the area Nevol indicated. After a bit, Zashier spots some claw-marks on an exposed root. They're not much, but they do indicate a direction something clawed took into the forest.
The sorcerer points to the tracks "Those could be dragon tracks, but they're a bit too scattered to know for sure. However, I'm thinking it might be a drake as opposed to a true dragon."
Taelrurur shrugs slightly. "It seems there is only one way to be certain," he states.
Summoning magical armor, Zash nods, and heads into the forest, looking about for any more signs of the tracks.
Between Zash and Taelrurur, the pair are able to catch occasional signs of something clawed passing often enough to keep on track. The trail goes on for a while they finally reach something--the bones of part of a cow, picked clean and broken open for their marrow.
The young man turns to his friend "Well, what do you think? I suppose this could be the work of a dragon, or even a drake, but I'm having some doubts. This doesn't seem to be draconic in nature, though I will admit to having not overly studied the remains of too many dragon dinners." He says with a wry chuckle.
Taelrurur frowns and examines the remains closely. "The teeth match... but no dragon would so demean himself..." he murmurs.
He looks up at Zashier. "A dragon's teeth made these marks, but no dragon would stoop so low as to break bones for marrow. Not unless there was something seriously wrong."
"Which means we should keep looking, and be extra wary. If something's caused a dragon to debase itself so, that could be serious trouble."
He pauses, thinking. "It might be a good idea to assume your normal form, in case this goes sideways."
He continues to try and track whatever it is they're looking for.
Taelrurur silently nods and changes form.
It's actually a bit easier to follow the tracks here--enough so that Zashier starts feeling more certain these *are* dragon tracks. It looks like it came back here multiple times, as if it fed from the corpse on multiple occasions.
The tracks lead away for perhaps a mile before leading towards a small cave in a low hill.
"I'm about to do something rather stupid, but I'm not sure there's any better way around this." Zash says wryly to Tael.
That said, he walks up to the entrance to the cave.
An uncertain voice answers Zash's call. "Hver er þar? Ég meina ... ekki vandræði með mig, dauðlegt!"
"Hver er ég? Og ég þarf ekki hjálp!"
It occurs to Zash that this dragon sounds very young.
"Nei! Vera í burtu! Komdu ekki inn!" The dragon shouts. It's clear to Zashier that this dragon is both young and scared.
"Nei! Vertu aftur! Komdu ekki inn!"
Zashier has never heard a dragon sound so... plaintive before. He steps into the gloom, and slowly he is able to see the dragon. He's clearly young, barely bigger than a man... but what immediately catches the eye is the mangled mess on his back that should be his wings. It looks as if they were broken in a couple of dozen places and then healed at all the wrong angles. It's clear the dragon can't fly.
The young dragon looks at Zashier with terror in his eyes, backing further into the corner of his small cave.
Looking over the wings, Zash notes that a simple cure spell won't work after all.
After the red responds he gets Tael to try and offer some help.
The young red grudgingly lets Taelrurur look him over, though he's clearly both scared and angry to have another dragon here. "I... I fell." He answers, then growls in pain and anger. "Someone shot me while I was flying, and I fell down a mountainside. I tumbled, and... my parents never found me." He looks down as he finishes.
Taelrurur pulls Zashier aside after his examination. "I only see two ways to fix the wings," he says. "Either find someone who can cast regeneration, or we'll have to re-break the breaks and then set them properly before you use your healing magic."
Zash is visibly saddened by the red's story. "That's terrible! I'm sorry such an awful thing happened. How long ago did this occur? And are you from around here originally? Maybe we can help find your parents." He suggests with complete sincerity.
After Tael offers his choices, the sorcerer quietly replies "I think we're going to need to re-break them. If those hunters are actually on their way here, he's gonna need to fly."
"Not long... a few weeks ago. I... they didn't come looking..." The red dragon's voice falls, and Zashier can tell he suspects the worst. Dragon children, unlike human children, know death from an early age.
Taelrurur eyes the young dragon doubtfully. "You will have to convince him of that, oh silver-tongued one."
"Well, we'll do our best to help you out." He replies, then informs the young dragon of the bad news "My friend here suggests if we re-break your wings, we can set them properly, and then I can use healing magic to help them mend correctly. I know that's not something you want to experience again, but there's potentially a band of dragon slayers on their way here, looking to kill you. Having you capable of flight is imperative to your survival."
"What!?" the dragon half-roars, half-shouts. "You... you..." he trails off.
He looks down. "It's the only way, isn't it? They're just not going to heal right on their own..."
He looks up at Zashier suspiciously. "But why would you help me?"
"As I said when I first got here, I'm a missionary of Io, god of all dragons. I believe all dragons are scared, and deserving of respect. I have tasked myself with helping and aiding your kind whenever possible." Zash replies simply.
The young red looks Zashier up and down, very suspicious. But he has little other choice.
"Fine. Do it. But I will haunt your graves if you lie," he says, trying to sound imposing.
Tael carefully re-breaks each wing, then sets them back properly. He does his best to avoid causing any unnecessary pain, but it's not possible to cause the red at least *some*.
The dragon roars in pain as Tael works, but he does not resist. After what seems like hours but was probably more like minutes, the work is done, and his wings at least look to be in the right shape again.
The sorcerer calls upon his innate magicks to cast a healing spell.
He rummages around in his belt, and pulls out a kit that he hands to Tael. "Use this to help speed up the recover process."
The young dragon endures Zashier and Taelrurur's ministrations with only the occasional growl of discomfort. By the time you're done, you could say that while his wings aren't pretty, they're probably functional again, or will be soon enough.
The young red dragon tests them cautiously, seeming a bit incredulous that you did, indeed, actually help him.
"Now that your wings are much more better off than before, perhaps full introductions are in order. As I already said, my name is Zashier, and my from here is Taelruru."
"Verixkharath," the red dragon says, still looking a bit surprised by everything. "So... what now?"
"Well met Verixkharath. Now, I'm not sure, honestly. Those hunters could get here at any time, but there's no way to know when." The dracomancer says with some uncertainty.
"Right, so... we should leave?"
"If you think that's best. This is your home, but if you wish to leave, then we will."
Verixkharath shakes his head slightly. "This isn't my home. This is where I ran to... to... try and get better."
"Then let us depart. If there's no need to stay here, then we should leave. Do you feel like you can fly?"
Verixkharath stretches his wings experimentally. He winces just a bit.
"If I had to," he answers.
"I'm not sure there's a need to just yet. For now, we can travel on foot, and take to the sky if necessary. Zash replies, then looks around the cave. "Assuming you have nothing to grab, let's get out of here. The sooner we start putting distance between us and those hunters, the better."
You set out, heading farther from Silverymoon, roughly towards the southeast. It's difficult, however--the lands here are still somewhat settled, so staying out of sight will be tricky.
Tael once more adopts a human form, and the trio departs on foot, for now. As it's nearing dark, they use that to their advantage, going wide around any farmsteads or hamlets they might encounter. They will continue traveling as long into the night as possible.
Traveling carefully, you're able to get out of the most settled areas after a few hours. You hear sounds in the night that make you a bit nervous, but apparently nothing quite wants to attack a dragon and two humans, in spite of how small the dragon is.
Sometime after midnight, you'd guess, Verixkharath starts complaining about how sleepy he is. You set up camp for the night.
Nothing disturbs you in the night.
The morning dawns bright and clear, the sun's light revealing you're getting up into the more mountainous areas. Verixkharath seems much more cheerful than yesterday... and very hungry.
"Are we going hunting?" he asks, eyes darting about as if something good to eat is just about to jump out in front of him.
"Yes, you can go hunting, but be careful, and stay low. If you can avoid flying, that's probably for the best." Zashier says, not needing to eat himself.
Instead, while the dragons search for food, he scouts out a ways, keeping an eye for trouble.
The dragons turn up some good hunting, and as far as they could tell, were not spotted.
Zashier doesn't see any signs of problems, though he can tell this is still too close to settled lands to be an appropriate area for a young red dragon's lair.
The trio will continue heading towards the High Forest, again only stopping at night when Verixkharath is too tired to continue.
After traveling further into the mountains, Verixkharath looks over at Zashier and asks, "Where are we going?"