The Luminous Library of Lu Feng

When the agency said that none of their occult scholars had information on their specimen, they would have to resort to “special consultants.” This time it was a shady tea shop hidden away in the city’s back streets, run by an equally shady senior in a Fu Manchu get up.

After a brief negotiation, including showing the man the specimen, they were ushered down a long, ominous corridor with metal floors, and double doors at the end. Of course, they didn’t wait long for the twist, as the floor suddenly gave way, and they plummeted about three storeys into a heap of twisted metal. Too short for transformation, but too low for real lasting damage.

June checked on Deimos to see if there was any damage. “You alright? I will never get used to interdimensional travel. So this is…Asheron? Akeron? I feel like I just inhaled some really dry crackers.” June said as she got up, dusting herself off and giving a few coughs as the air here was bone dry, the kind that makes you feel constantly thirsty and needing a drink. It wasn’t hot- it was just really, really dry. June’s heightened smell also noted that earth’s ozone smell was replaced by an omnipresent ferrous one.  She secured the specimen box to her belt.

There was nowhere else to look but up, as they had fallen into a deep chasm that at first looked like the biggest scrap heap they’d ever seen. Here in the bottom, June eventually realized the junk wasn’t your standard everyday junk. Scattered around them in this deep pit were veritable mountains of armor, weapons, siege equipment, artillery and the bones of the people who’d used them, dumped unceremoniously in a pile. Not all of it was from earth either. Little of it was. June caught herself eye to eye with the skull of a dwarf… dwarf? Recognizing it was dwarf only because of the beard armor.
Naturally, her earth-based navigation and communication system were all offline, so they’d have to rely more on their senses and common sense. Common sense directed the eyes to a small clearing in the junk pile, first a large, rather familiar Chinese archway, then around it, what seemed to be carefully tended flower gardens.

June blinked a few times then turned to Deimos. “…Maybe this Lu Feng character isn’t as nuts as he’s made out to be.”

Deimos had been pretty happy with his policy of ‘never let another half dragon get into dangerous situations alone’ so far. He didn’t even think twice about accompanying June to the super suspicious tea shop. He didn't expect to get free fall dropped into the land of dry air the next second.

The half dragon turns a hard flip, right side up, wings unfurling to dwarf his body and cushion his fall. He’d almost stopped his momentum entirely before hitting the pile of warped weapons and dwarf bones. He lands only somewhat uncomfortably, but upright and on his feet none-the less. “I’m good. A little warning before being air dropped would have been nice.” He coughs, half wondering how June was fine. Deimos could right himself from most freefalls in a short distance. It seemed like June’s fall-strategy was just to tank the fall, but it seemed to work well enough.

Folding his wings back against his back and the various resettling that entailed, while examining the siege equipment. He couldn't help but sneeze due to the dry air, “I don’t know, when they say a dragon has lost their mind, they’re typically right. Remind me to tell you the story of Mad Queen Lurabelle later.” It was a story he got from his mother’s mind, pictures in the egg, a story she was able to tell from first hand experience, even though it occurred centuries ago. “He’s got an impressive horde.” He couldn’t help but admit it. Deimos could appreciate a good sized horde from one dragon to another.

“We’re looking for something in particular here?”

June looked around a bit more and saw there were plenty of cubes and geometric shapes in the sky, however her suit’s range finder put their distance at hundreds of kilometers, so they weren’t her immediate concern. Her immediate attention was drawn to the archway, which upon closer inspection were made entirely of metal and of much more immense size, easily four storeys at the apex of the structure. The sign meanwhile, was Draconic and Chinese, of all things, but didn’t look like anything new – hence not related to current events. It was aged, an old version of Mandarin. The kind of class June slept through. She passed under the archway readily enough, but the view suggested by the arch was just a sheer cliff face and a small flower bed.

June turned to Deimos, replying, then asking as she pointed to the Draconic and Chinese characters, reading out only the Chinese part. “Send me the link anytime. Does the name Lu Feng ring a bell to you?” the Draconic underneath spelled out “Visitors shall have their intentions known.”

She decided to come closer to the flower bed and realized, they too were made of metal. The stems, the leaves, the petals, even the bushes- all metal, meticulously worked in detail. June took a moment to appreciate the work, a stark contrast to the haphazard dead all around them. She picked up one flower and handed it to Deimos, her very impenetrable skin not telling her that the metal was razor sharp and would cut anyone not as durable as her. “Souvenir?”

The calm of the flower garden would soon be interrupted by the sound of metal scraping metal, as the dead army began to stir. Armored dwarf bones long dried and undisturbed for who knows how long, began to slowly stand up and walk towards them. It was a small number, just eight, encased in scale mail and all wielding halberds, began to encircle them in the metal flower garden. They did not speak, but June knew what bared weapons meant. “Okay. Is this the welcoming committee, or us being told to get out?”

June only saw a bunch of undead dwarfs, but those schooled in the arcane would sense no necromancy afoot animating these long dead soldiers, but instead it was their metal armor being animated. June simply waited for them to move, being calm and composed and trying to talk to them first. “My name is June Young, and this is Deimos. We’re not here to fight, we’re looking for Lu Feng’s library.”

The dead ones did not reply, naturally, having no vocal cords with which to reply. A halberd was swung towards June’s collarbone while another went for a thrust to her gut, which worked about as well as stabbing solid rock. If they wanted a fight June would oblige, grabbing the steel blade with a bare hand and pulling in the dead soldier, punching his helmet and head clean off his shoulder. The skull rolled out of the helmet and came to rest at Deimos’s foot.

It would come as no surprise that this had no effect, as the now headless suit of armor drew his side arm- a short gladius, and continued the melee, thrusting feebly, forcing June to tear the offending skeleton limb from limb, then using one dead guy as a large bludgeoning weapon to crush the other dead guys. Beating a dumbass with another dumbass, as it is said.  

Deimos would be similarly tested, having four halberds come at him from four different directions, using rudimentary reach and flanking tactics to test his mettle.

Somewhere nearby, an unseen metal mage laughed and amused herself. It had been awhile since they'd had interesting guests.

Deimos shrugged at the draconic name, skipping over the Chinese lettering as that was foreign to him, rather reading the draconic instead. “I don’t know anyone named Lu Feng, means he must be very old, very young or of this dimension.” All of Deimos’s memories within the eggs was the history of his kind from his mother’s perspective, and some of them were her mother and father’s before her. Dragons of his lineage were born as the libraries of their ancestors, and that library only grew as dragonells and dragons would spend the entire two years of incubation whispering mental echoes to their babies almost non-stop. “Visitors shall have their intentions known. Odd. Perhaps a truth-forcing spell?” He asks, not the most sure of these kinds of mind-altering spells.

Perking at June’s rather shiny offering, Deimos takes the metallic flower before jumping as the metal bites into his finger. He drops the flower as iridescent blood drips from his opened fingertip. “Ow. Place is made of knives or something.” He groans as he sucks on his finger to stop the bleeding.

Deimos bristles as the dead seemed to stand, making a small, subtle hand gesture as his hands glittered with blue dust which draped itself around him in a thin layer as his wings began to glow in a startlingly dim light. He had little trust for dead men and it seemed he was right to take the time June took to prepare for a fight. Halberds were thrust in his direction, deflecting off the shield he’d made as a wing slaps out, shattering bones into matchsticks.

By the time he righted his wings had shone bright as the stars as Deimos unleashed a blinding blast into the remaining skeletons, melting the bone into smoldering liquid dust. His wings and spine begin to die down, slowly pulsating. “I did not sign up for the walking dead.”

Crushing the animated suits was an afterthought to the two half dragons, but it was the treachery of the flower bed that would bring an end to this game.

The moment Deimos’s blood hit the metal ground, it activated the divination function of the archway. The spot where his blood hit caused a line of energy to send a line of power towards the arch, and the otherwise mundane sculpted dragon on the roof lit up, identifying the nature of the blood. The figure of man in the fresco of humanoids also lit up, revealing human blood. As they fought the skeleton puppets, the arches began to rumble.

The presence of Dragonkin here at Lu Feng’s abode, Lu Feng the exile among dragons, caused the activated of true guardians hidden inside the massive columns. The plain surface revealed themselves to be hiding a large stone guardian in each column, shaped in the manner of ancient Chinese warriors and standing twice the height of men. They each carried a massive sledgehammer, its head topped off with a single large dragon fang.

June immediately felt the situation escalate. The animated suits almost felt like a gauge to see their abilities. Giant terra cotta warriors with dragon bone tipped weapons? Now they were in danger. “Oh shit.”

The ground rumbled with their steps, and they moved faster than stone statues had right to move. June was immediately on the defensive, throwing discarded metal weapons at them, achieving nothing but embedding swords and halberd blades into their thick stone bodies. June rolled out of the death dealing hammer’s way, its impact delivering tremendous force.

One of the guardians saw Deimos was flying. Instead of pursuing him, he powered up, and shot eldritch beams of purple energy from its eyes towards him.

The metal mage’s amusement came to an end as the archway’s divination function activated, and revealed the nature of their guests. “Dragons? These two are dragons? But also human.” She muttered. On one hand, Lu Feng had instructions to quash any dragon force who came to the Library. On the other hand, these two lacked the hubris of would-be reckoners sent by dragon society. They were also half dragons, if the divination arch was accurate.

She sighed, and hoped they would last, as the ground beneath her opened up and she quickly lunged down an earth slide, exiting in front of the cliff face June dismissed. Using her control over the earth, she created a wave that she did surf so righteously towards the flower garden.

Deimos didn’t quite catch the danger of the situation until June’s body language changed. June was tough, if she was being cautious, Deimos should probably be REALLY cautious. Only then did he realize the boney gleam of dragon bone coming from the ends of the guardian’s warhammer.

“How come whenever I hang out with you, we end up in ‘Oh shit’ situations?” Deimos jokes, choosing to stay out of reach of the guardians, opting to send shimmering dust from his hands to surround June, cloaking her in a shield to completely absorb one hit. He assumed he could be airborne and support June through shields and healing, however he jumps to the side just in time to dodge a beam of ancient anger.

“Great. They have death beams. I should probabl- ah” Deimos dips down again to dodge another. “Change?” He asks as the glimmering pulse in his wings begins to die down, but not entirely yet. There wasn’t time at all to change without getting blasted by stone golems, but there wasn’t at all a thing he could do to stop the onslaught as a human. His blind and burn was not ready to be used again, and even then, it wasn’t as strong as if he were a dragon. He’d probably at best burn a tiny dent in it.


“Any ideas?” He asks, catching his wingtip on another eldritch blast, and fighting to keep away from the rest. Deimos then had a thought. A bad one that June would probably be pissed about later, but he had spilled his spell list to her earlier and she didn’t seem to balk at it then. That would have to count as consent for now. Deimos makes a fast gesture and casts a spell in June’s direction. “Hey June, here!” He yelps to catch June's attention so she wouldn't shrug off his magic, casting polymorph in a panic.

Deimos had no idea why the first thing that came to his mind was the Carnosaurs from Warhammer, perhaps because that’s what he was doing when June called him for this harebrained mission? Either way, he turned June into the most monstrous thing he could think of that wouldn’t be hurt by dragon bone. Hopefully she’d just roll with it and wouldn’t be angry at the surprise polymorph.

June had only been briefed with Deimos's arsenal once and had only light practice, but the T-Rex form for hunting other large targets was a viable maneuver. Sadly, she hadn't the time to call a Play so Deimos just went with two- first the Shield of Shem, which though very useful she conserved until she could find a better attack position, secondly the T-Rex form.

While not the same mass as her dragon form, she retained better mental control and no weight was wasted on wings, hence the Carnosaur had its uses. June barely had time as the stone golem didn't stand idly by and watch the transformation; he burned through the shield mid-polymorph, but that was enough as June used her mass to leap onto the Guardian and push it to the ground, massive legs on its torso and a mighty jaw on its wrist. June chomped down with all her might and "un handed" the guardian.

But these weren't run of the mill stone golems though. Lu Feng built them to take down dragons, and had they egos their armor would be marked with dozens of kill counts. Demonstrating skill and agility that was frankly unfair in their kind, the now one-handed and prone Guardian shrimped and shot its upper body between June's massive Carnosaur legs and catch her in a leg lock around her massive neck!

"Shoot a leg lock I have- shit no arms!" June agonized the weakness of the form, its rather feeble arms unsuited to defend against this takedown. The Guardian also grabbed June's leg and rolled to the side, pinning her down. They seemed locked in a stalemate, until the second Guardian saw his counterpart's predicament and rushed over, hefting his sledgehammer to smash in June's now defenseless head. She roared in anger and frustration.

Thankfully the situation was now shifting with the arrival of the mage... surfing on an earth wave. She shouted to Deimos in very clear draconic. "Base of the neck! Manual Kill switch!" After which she began making large, sweeping gestures in the Executioner's direction. The ground rumbled briefly as it obeyed the power of the geomancer, loosening and liquefying, causing the Guardian to rapidly sink. As it swung its hammer down in a killing stroke, it fell short a good feet and a half from June's head, and its weapon too now sank into the ground. Deimos had an opening.

Deimos had kind of forgotten about the lack of arms issue. Part of him wondered how rexes ever existed without arms. What kind of evolutionary bingo did the rex lose to have lack of arms as a trait?

“Fuck, Didn’t think you needed them!” Deimos blurts, not really processing the stupid words that just came out of his mouth. He had time to be embarrassed later when they weren’t about to be murdered. Seemed like this was it. He was promised a library but looked like he was getting a death by stone man instead. He never expected to have to fight and in the event they did, he had assumed supporting June would have been all he needed. These things were just going to squash them both.

Only then did the voice cut through his mind. Kill switch? How had he not noticed a literal big off button on these things? Why did these things have off buttons? Oh well, he didn’t need to be picky, instead he descends upon the shoulders of the sinking guardian, examining for the switch and sure enough a tiny stone off button which he smashed hard enough to make his hand bleed.

Deimos did not wait to see if it worked, he quickly attempted to copy what he’d done onto the other, hoping it was too busy holding down the angry carnosaur to swat him like a gnat. He just went for it, throwing caution to the wing, hoping their new mage could provide enough support incase this thing wasn’t done just yet.

It was more like a dial one twisted, which disaligned a Chinese character, but it was intuitive enough to understand and the deadly golems revert to being inert statues all the same. This was good, as even being sunk into the ground, the Guardian had already freed one arm as Deimos turned him off.

Deimos flew faster than the mage could surf, so with the second Guardian, she decided to play support and grab arm that was moving to stop Deimos. The golem struggled against it, the effort visibly straining the mage, but the teamwork paid off and Deimos manages the second Guardian.

Once she realized there was no more struggle, giant carnivore June wiggled free from its legs, and got herself back on her feet, using her tail and head, her arms rather useless. She steps on the Guardian's head in frustration then turns her attention to the new arrival. She looks at Deimos and grunts, unable to speak, then towards their savior with a low growl.

The ground stopped rumbling and moving, and the mage approached. Now that things had settled down, she was a disheveled and unkempt Chinese woman in what used to be a nice traditional robe. SHe was of diminuitive stature, not even clearing five feet. She clasped her hands together and bowed, speaking to Deimos in archaic dialect of draconic, the equivalent of thee and thous.

"We offer our sincerest apologies for the Guardians! they are beyond our ability to control. We Welcome thee, honored cousins, to the Library! may we know what is thy business here?" She might have been small but she had good voice projection and looked at Deimos with intense eyes like she'd made a great mistake.

Deimos gave a deep sigh of relief when their new mage friend stopped him from getting swatted like a fly by a giant stone man. He prys himself off the guardian’s back, only now realizing the white knuckle grip he’d had on it to begin with as June proceeds with her very understandable fit of rage.

“Oh, thanks for the save I- uh… Cousins?” He asks, trying to mirror her ancient draconic, only catching the relative part after a second or two when his mind had run away from him. Then he remembered June. He gives a quick gesture to dispel the magic to release June from her polymorph. “Sorry, June. I didn’t have a lot of options and that seemed like a good idea at the time.” The half-dragon sheepishly apologizes, avoiding eye contact with her for a moment, feeling rather crappy about the impromptu polymorph.

Deimos mirrors her bow, going along with her customs as they were currently in her library. His wings folded against his back as he seemed to almost change demeanor entirely. Wings weighed down on his spine pulling him up into a better posture than one he’d adopted to fit in with humans. Keeping a straight spine and a confident demeanor with humans made him read as uppity and snobby, yet the posture seemed natural for dragonic interactions. “I am Deimos, This is June. We’re looking for the library of Lu Feng. I assume you are also a dragon?” He asks, deciding to attempt a mind picture at Lu Feng. He was sending her an image of his mother in all her regal grace. Her star-swirled wings stretched beneath the full moon. He could only hope she both could receive the visions he’d projected and understood their meaning as a declaration of his bloodline.

“Do you speak common? June does not speak draconic. I can translate is need be.”

"Well met and welcome, Deimos, and June. I am Lu Tong Niao. You may address me as Lady Niao." That part with her name was in Chinese, so June perked up at catching something from her speech.

"...why is she saying Metal Kitten?" June elbow bumped Deimos, as that was the only part she got.

"I see! A noble lineage. Celestial dragons, I have read of your line." Standing at three paces from Deimos, Niao diligently received Deimos's mental communication. It made the conveying of information much faster, and she replied with her own lineage - the dragon appearance of Lu Feng, a great and terrible earth and metal dragon with a most fell reputation with greater dragon society. Of course Lu Feng was no monster to Niao- He is in fact her father, a direct relation, and she has five full dragon half siblings, scattered across the cosmos, and a score of other half-dragon half-siblings. Lu Feng was- is- a very fruitful being.

Once the mental exercise was over and lineages examined, she "I am one of the senior Librarians for the luminous library of the sage, Lu Feng." She looked at June, who had not been as talkative. She approached closer, only to realize the startling difference in size. Niao only came up to June's bust, and a look of frustrated young female envy flashed across her face before she recomposed herself.

"And your lineage, my lady?" She asked June, relaying the same information mentally, but in simplistic terms had a bad connection. It was like talking to a mute. Then Deimos explained June's situation.

"This one is a unlearned foundling? A most dire tragedy!" She said with extreme pity, looking at the mountainous June with wonder.

"I speak... some Chinese..." June fumbled with the language, Chinese being her 4th language.

"Ah I see, you prefer earth language. Let me repeat myself then." She clears her throat and drops her name in Chinese. "Lady Little Metal Kitten. You may address me as lady Kitten."

"Pardon me." At that point June had to turn around to suppress a snicker. She had to explain to Deimos what her name meant, and Lu Feng must have a sense of humor to call her that.

Niao simply tapped her foot, annoyed at the diversion. "If I may, what does the cousin lady June find so amusing, cousin Deimos?" she switches to Draconic.

In Draconic Naio’s name was just that-her name- however once June elbowed him with the meaning in Chinese he couldn’t help but choke down a small snort of laughter. No matter how funny her name’s literal translation, it was rather nice to have someone who could readily pick up his mind-pictures. Even his own name had a literal translation in a sense. His human father had explained the greek pantheon to his draconic mother and the name Deimos stuck out to her, it was the name of a god of terror however it was very similar to the draconic word ‘Deimas’ which referred to the moon’s shadow. Or a solar eclipse. It was meant to honor both sides of his heritage, which would have worked out if one side didn’t slay the other.


“Ah, I would call June many things, but unlearned wouldn’t be one of them. She speaks many languages, but draconic is not yet one of them. We’re going to work on that.” Deimos chirps, he had to admit, he thought June was more learned than he was. Sure Deimos knew draconic, and a few dead languages but that was only because it was programmed into him in the egg. Knowing several languages that were actually useful seemed much more impressive to him.

“As for the laughter, she um… Your name has an interesting translation.” He tries to put it nicely in a method that wouldn’t offend. He sends another mind picture of a small, shiny tin kitten, swatting at an equally shiny ball of metal yarn. “We apologize, it is just a bit of a shock.”

Niao let out an expression of disappointment and a bit of contempt with a huff, shooting June a look of 'i'm keeping my eyes on you'.

"Father translated it more akin to Noble Steel Tiger. But being the... least physical imposing of his favored sires, it begins to make sense." She explained, altering Deimos's little metal kitten with a majestic roaring tiger with a mighty steel exterior.

"REGARDLESS. REGARDLESS!" Niao waved her hand to dismiss the issue of her name. She switches to Chinese, the language barrier an obstacle but not insurmountable. "Thou art here for a purpose, to seek knowledge of the Library that is found nowhere else. What knowledge could you seek?"

June composed herself and went back to business. "Right, My Apologies, revered sage. We seek knowledge on this." She started off with something a bit formal. Then she brought out the small cylindrical container and showed it to Niao. She looked at the container with its lights and sounds with interest, but her eyes truly went wide at the sample- a piece of bloody flesh, by some profane power still contracting as if alive. There was also the odor of rotting fish, but worse.

"This...is..." Niao's formality wavered at the sight of it. There was a short list of beings she knew who even torn asunder would not die. Carefully she tipped the container to let a drop of blood spill onto the divination platform. Once again the blood fell into a barely noticable crevice, and shot up into the arch. It activated a bas-relief of an entity far removed from the material realm's hierarchy- instead, an entity beyond even dragons, celestials and demons. The outer gods. The elder beings. The unspeakable ones.  

"Outer gods. By the gods of earth. We must go find father, or one of his fellows. The knowledge we seek is restricted even beyond my authority."

Deimos gives a light shrug, fair was fair. If she wanted to imagine a metal tiger, she could imagine a metal tiger. But now he wouldn’t not think of her as lady metal kitten.

He didn’t understand the chinese, only really perking as June just casually produces a gross hunk of meat from god knows what… Did that thing just move? He watches as the blood hits the ground and activates the same death trap they managed to disable earlier, even if he did jump and prepare for god knows what to come after them with intent to kill.

“June… What is that?” He asks with a bit of uncertainty in his voice. He assumed they were there for something fun, like aztec death whistles or something. He didn’t realize they were here for some lovecraftian bullshit. “Please for the love of all that is holy tell me you did not bring me to summon some kind of monstrosity. I came for books and nerd stuff. Not the subject of my nightmares.” He half-jokes, praying nervously she didn’t actually expect him to magic this thing up. It was within the realm of possibility for him, but not something he wanted to quarrel with. Outer Gods were typically things Deimos chose to leave be, choosing to be ignorant.

“Great, we get to deal with elder gods AND meet very large ancient dragons on the same day. Interesting day it is.”

“Follow me.” Niao led them towards the very solid cliff, except now with a geomancer the earth began to part as Niao approached and made gestures with her hands. As they walked June explained the situation to bring her companion up to speed. And she had a flexible screen on her suit’s forearm to provide a video recording of the mission. She didn’t have mind pictures but she did have the benefit of technology.

“okay. We were in a hurry so I guess I didn’t brief you on the situation. This is a classified mission but… some time after I joined the Korean Marines, I led an underwater mission to an alien base.” She brings up some classified videos of the Korean superheroes who went on the mission, followed by their incursion into the alien ‘base’. In 1080p HD video no less.

“It was big, it was probably a temple and there were lots of things I saw I don’t want to remember. Long story short I killed this sleeping… thing… with an octopus for a head… or at least I thought I killed it. And then the entire temple collapsed. But now its body parts are turning up in crazed cults… And we need info. That’s why we’re here.” She said with a pang of guilt, thinking maybe the damage she dealt to the ‘enemy’ actually benefited them.

Niao didn’t catch a whiff of English but the holographic images June produced fascinated her. June barely noticed their host literally having her nose on her forearm like a little kid who just discovered YouTube.

“Ahem. The outer gods transcend their physical forms. Not even a formidable warrior as you lady June could know what they are capable of.” She explained, twice, to Deimos and June. Once they had finished travelling through the solid earth, they emerged into a great columned hall, with pale emerald witchfire illuminating their way.

It was a receiving gallery as several others were headed towards the great doors at the end, large reptilian humanoids of great proportion and muscle.

A party of three dragonborn noted their arrival, each a behemoth standing eight feet tall and three times as broad at the shoulder as June, all carrying two handed weapons such as greatswords, axes and halberds and adorned in impressive armor. They also carried a gruesome cargo – several heads of monsters on ropes- But they stopped in their tracks and looked at the newcomers behind them. Upon spotting Niao, they clasped hands and offered the same bow to her. “Elder sister.” They all muttered in draconic, “Little brothers.” She replied, returning their bow.

Only then did they turn to Deimos and June. June was definitely stumped, maybe because these dragonborn weren’t attacking them immediately. “Are these Guests, elder sister?” they inquired.

“They are. The female speaks the language of old Qin but not Draconic.” She introduced Deimos and June. The three warriors approached and for once, June was not the biggest in the room. “Well met! We are the brothers three, Sun Ce, Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu.” Befitting warriors, they had iron grips, and despite their boisterous and friendly demeanor wished to gain a measure of their guest’s strength with manly warrior handshakes.

June obliged them and engaged in a prolonged contest of grips. Despite their size, June still had freakishly more strength. “Ahh! This one is strong!” Sun, the leader, said rubbing his reptilian hand when he realized the difference in power. The others laughed.

“Oh before I forget!” Niao suddenly exclaimed, then brought out a couple of small pendants and handed them to June and Deimos. “Thou must keep these on your persons at all times. I may not have accounted for all the defenses of the library. These shall mark you as guests.”