Leaving Athenia not too long after he'd arrived, Raven teleported himself and a handful of others to Aranuvia. There, landing right in front of Galleria one of the holders of the teleportation rings, he was met with a smile and a round of applause by the cheery dragoness.
"Viola~ Impressive trick, o'dear king," covering her mouth, she chuckled into her palm before having to adjust her top hat back on as it was just about to fall. "What will you surprise me with next? Pull out a rabbit out of my hat?"
Darting her gaze to the bunny girl, Galleria chuckled some more. The dragoness knew why she was afforded the presence of the king, after all, nobody visited her without there being something for them to take. And the sorceress, Shamisha, was someone the dragoness was all too familiar with.
"You must be Aurarelia's apprentice," she muttered and slowly her expression dropped.
Confounded by the sudden mention of her master, Shamisha stepped forward, each step feeling more reluctant than the last. Thankfully, with a hand on her shoulder, she was stopped by Raven right beside him. Giving him a quick glance, she shook her head and decided to inquire further.
"How do you know her?" She asked, and in an instant, the dragoness' expression fouled.
"How do I know? Why don't you go ask her what her experiment for that damned iron core did to my tribe!" Gritting her teeth, Galleria appeared to be struggling in her chair. She was trying to jump out but an invisible force wouldn't let her. "The king of crows…that man drove our species into extinction, and that sorceress master of yours was the reason he was so adamant to get his hands on our bodies!"
All eyes turned to the bunny girl. Linkle wasn't too surprised by the revelation as she herself would've done the same if necessary, Raven felt much the same although he could recognize the folly of the late king of Elenaris. But then came Mercedes, the only other person accompanying them.
'What in the fuck have these people been doing before they arrived at our city?!' Freaking out internally, she wanted to turn around and bolt away. But knowing full well that without her patron's powers she was just another human merchant, she didn't even risk it.
"Blaming her doesn't change anything," turning his attention back to Galleria, Raven moved closer to the dragoness and stretched his hand forward. "We're to get some of your scales, that's it. Give them to me and I'll find a way to help you get out of this place."
For a spell, Galleria's eyes mellowed to his words, but in the very next instance, she rolled her eyes and scoffed.
"I'm not a prisoner, O'King, I can break free whenever," looking to the walls at her side, she tried to remember what kind of ordeal had convinced her to become the treasure's guardian in the first place. "Aran was cruel, he was strong, I had no choice but to agree to follow him. He liked to collect rare items after all. Me, that fox girl and many like us were brought here, most died or fled the place, but we stayed because we had nowhere else to go."
Her eyes sombre with a hint of tears turned to the mage in front. Staring into his eyes, she wiped them away before flashing a toothy smile.
"The last of steel dragons, even if I find a partner our clan will never be as prosperous as it once was," to her words, another monster girl from within the jewel grumbled.
"Then come join us, and the fae will ensure that your children inherit this world alongside mine," it was Arche, speaking out her mind because she felt the same about making her species prosper as it was the only duty of monster kind–especially a queen, nursed by her colony to give birth.
Laughing it off, she fanned her right hand in front of her eyes. Returning to her cheery self, the dragoness pretended as if her anger hadn't manifested just a few moments ago at all.
"A fine suggestion, but…" Looking at Raven again, she smiled. "I'll have to decline. Now that Aran is dead, I must guard this treasure from falling into the wrong hands. Not to mention."
Her lips quivered for a moment, reflecting some form of inner turmoil. But with her expression failing to fall, Galleria kept up the facade that she felt just alright.
"Dragons are mostly infertile, my case is no different–I even stopped ovulating a while ago," those words hung heavy in the air. An ultimate for the race of steel dragons. Their clans scattered, and the only known female ageing past her prime, there was no longer any hope for Galleria to be a mother. "Enough of that, here you can my scales."
Stretching her hand forward as it transformed into a humanoid claw with glistening dark scales, she urged Raven to trim them off, and even though he was still catching up with everything that she'd said, the mage did what was necessary and not what he felt was either right or wrong. No longer concerned for doing good, he forced himself to trim the scales off of her hand.
The sound of him scrubbing away, plucking the scales with a knife of darkness for a while, echoed inside that hall until eventually he was done and the arm was left bleeding with many unsightly blisters throughout its surface.
"Anything else, O' King?" Galleria asked, pulling her hand away and healing it with her vitality at the same time.
Shoveling the scales into a pouch with his hands, Raven raised from the ground and turned to Mercedes. The merchant gulped heavily the moment she noticed him staring at her, as she knew it was finally time for her to undergo her punishment.
"Open the vault, I have someone who's gonna grab us whatever she can inside of that place," nodding to Raven's orders, Galleria got off the chair without any problem and led the group to the closed vault of treasures.
At first, Mercedes had no clue why she had to be the one to go inside, but the moment the lock opened and the dark hands emerged from within, she finally understood what Raven meant by punishment.
"Now go in and take out whatever it is that you can," ordered Raven, glaring into her very soul as if he was willing to throw her in if she even attempted to run.
'FUCK ME!' Cursing her fate, however, the Merchant readied herself for she knew to defy him in the state that he was in, wouldn't end too well for her. She was right to assume so, but perhaps the agony of the curse would make her reconsider in just a moment…