Get back to Relia

You do take the time to launch all five of your prepared arrows, bringing down three of the flying demons as you swept in a great arc back down towards your new riverside townhouse. Almost immediately it becomes clear that your decision to protect what is yours is the right one. The light-bringing Rider-king of Kalion will have to take care of himself, because the situation in the city below is even worse than you thought. In the streets and courtyards below, crowds of citizens are looking up into the eerie night sky trying to make sense of the aerial battle that is playing out. These people would be better served to be watching their backs. Like ripples in a still pond you can see three epicenters where the quiet of the night is disrupted by the screams of the citizenry and bloodthirsty howls of the monsters that seem to be swarming out of nowhere.

Unlike the bat-winged beasts that you saw leaping from the Citadel, these creatures seem to be crawling up from the sewers. In addition to the wolf-beasts that lope easily on both their arms and legs before standing on their hind legs to claw and tear at their victims, and the lizard-men who cling to the outer walls of the buildings You can make out giant slugs twice the length of a man slithering up from the riverbanks and hopping behind the slow-moving monsters are some kind of demonic cross between giant toads and deformed humanoids. It is only when you see two of those beasts leap on a fleeing girl that you realize that the beasts are endowed with oversized phalluses that are already fully erect. You take the time to shoot two more arrows downward into the backs of the humping toadmen. Although both arrows find their marks, sinking deeply into the scaly backs of the bug-eyed beasts, you wonder if it might have been **** to end the screaming of the maid thrashing under their twerking bodies.

The high walls of the expensive estates that overlook the river are no defense from the giant slugs that ooze up over the smooth walls and the slime trail they leave behind provides enough of a sticky grip for the hopping toads to scramble over as well. Moving with a score of the hopping monsters is a tall man in scale armor directing the ****. It is hard to know for sure from drakeback, even with the light from the Kalion king far overhead, but there is something disquieting about the way the officer directs the monsters. You consider circling the overwhelmed mansion to determine the fate of the screaming residents, but something inside warns that this is not a sight that you want to witness.

You recognize the Drake tower of your new estate about a block away from where the wave of monsters is swarming the walls of the city's wealthiest mansions and without a second thought you urge Swiftwing down towards the topmost roost. As far as you can tell, there is no sign of panic from Relia's household and you can only imagine that they, like most of the rest of the city has no idea the horrors that await the men and women and children dragged from their rooms by those unholy beasts.

You are met at the base of the drake tower by Relia's butler, (you still can't remember his name), and before he can welcome you home in his slow studied manner you order him to get everyone up and to gather in the drake tower with any weapons and valuables that they possess.

If it were just you and Relia, you would put her on Swift's back and get as far away as you can from this damned city, but there is Vitaliya and her boy as well as all the other servants who now are depending on you to keep them alive. This is, you realize with a snort, one of the key advantages of living the life of a Free-Rider.

Another long burst of flame from overhead reminds you that fleeing from this city on the back of even the swiftest drake is no guarantee of safety anyways and you look around for ways to fortify this slender tower.