The World Dragon's Heir - Chapter 521

Chapter 521: Missed The Important Part
Amie headed to the basement to at least try to clean up Dominic’s mess and see what he had forgotten to collect from the bodies.

However, she had questions.

He had vanished through the portal nearly twelve hours ago. But there was only one house here, and the staff had just realized that he had arrived. The timeline didn’t add up for a feral Dragon let loose.

Even if he had been in a heated battle with the mages here, it would have attracted attention within minutes of his arrival. Twelve hours was ridiculous.

So, where did he go before he was here, and how did he get here?

Or, was he knocked out when he arrived, and then escaped from confinement? That was an option, and would explain the delay. If they were trying to hold him for ransom, the battle wouldn’t have started right away, and the mages might have been blocking their attempts to find him.

That was a slightly horrifying thought.

Because it meant that there was likely someone else aware of where Dominic was right now, and they were likely to try to use that information as leverage to extort the Princess.

Getting Dominic back before he became a Martyr, a sign of the Dagos Rebellion’s continued presence, would be imperative if they were thought to be missing. Fortunately, the Duskblade Sect mages knew where they were.

If anyone did attempt to claim he was missing or killed, they would confirm it with her before taking any drastic actions.

Amie opened the basement door and gagged at the sight in front of her.

That was absolutely disgusting.

She steeled her nerves and checked the bodies. They had been mostly looted, but Dominic had only taken their storage items, he hadn’t checked the bodies for their affiliation tokens, which were normally spelled to forbid putting them in a separate space.

He also hadn’t taken their spell gems, weapons, or anything else.

Only the storage items.

He really was terrible at the whole “Collecting evidence to build a case and prove the truth in front of a Royal Court” portion of being a Duke. If the whole point was just to point at the bodies and tell people what you wanted, it would be much easier, but without evidence, the Nobles would believe what they wanted, no matter what the court said.

Fortunately, there was plenty of evidence, and she quickly determined that all of the bodies had come from the last hour or less, as the blood was still wet, and the bodies warm.

With that done, she searched the rest of the basement. The floodwaters were getting dangerously close to the windows, after which the room would surely flood, no matter what spell was keeping it dry for now.

On one side was the main stairwell to the main floor, but the door was locked from the inside, with a drop bar holding it closed.

Dominic had clearly not exited by the door. He must have gone up the same one she entered from, in the servant’s passages near the kitchen.

But there was also an open door, torn off its hinges and tossed into the next room. That was a bit more promising as an egress path, but not for his sanity at the time.

Amie stepped inside, and a vicious growl rasped from her throat.

There were dozens of children in cages, all of them in horrible condition, but all alive.

“Little one, who did this to you?” She whispered to one of the boys.

His mouth moved, but Amie quickly realized that someone had ruined his throat, likely with a hot poker to burn his vocal cords from the inside.

“It’s alright, I will get you all out of here first, and then we can get answers.

Did you see a dragonkin man with gold horns?”

The kids all nodded, and began to wail softly as they gestured to a cage with its front wall torn away, and then to the door, which had claw holes in the backside, where it had been forcibly torn from its hinges.

From inside the cell.

Just how strong was Dominic when he went feral? And why didn’t they take away anything that he could have used to either break out or go feral when they locked him up?

“Can any of you speak?” Amie asked quietly as she worked to cut the locks on all the cages with magic.

A girl in the corner whispered back.

“I can speak. Are you the dragon’s friend?”

“His best friend. He is upstairs now. The Nobles and the mages are dead, only the servants are left.”

The girl nodded slowly, trying to understand what was going on.

“The dragon man was unconscious when they threw him in here. They were really excited, like they had just won something. They started to call someone, saying that they had captured him, but then his eyes opened, and he grew claws and just tore his way out.

He tore the door down, and killed everyone. They cast spells on him, but he just kept fighting.”

The girl went silent, in shock from the horrors that she had seen, but Amie had one last question.

“How long was he in the cage?”

“Barely long enough to close the door? Not more than a minute or two. It’s challenging to tell time with no window in here.”

So, he had been captured, but only an hour ago.

Then what did he do for the other eleven hours of his disappearance? Where did he come from, and how did he get here? Getting answers somehow felt like they didn’t actually answer any of her questions, while still giving her a clear picture of what happened.

“Alright, the cages are open, can everyone move? If you can, we will go back upstairs. The servants will help you all.”

The kids looked skeptical.

“The servants that come down here to help them are all evil too. They do cruel things to us.” The girl whispered.

Perhaps this manor wasn’t going to have any survivors after all.