Legends of Varlaurea: The Dragon Emperor 15 THE MISTY FOX OF THE BAMBOO FOREST 3

Six missing in 3 weeks, one body found in a horrific state, no answered not even a suspect and a disastrous investigate trip in the forest resulted as the death of the town guard captain and the missing of a town guard. The town folks are frightening, and rumors starting to circulate that these missing and the strange mist may have something to do with White Cloud academy. Some said maybe it is some magic experiment had gone wrong, while some said maybe it is a rouge mage. Maybe the recently missing Taosih Hai is the perpetrator? and his missing is actually a cover up of White Cloud academy. "maybe Captain Vu had found out something and die because of it", "maybe the mages trying to protect each other?" Some conspiracy rumors said, because what else could explain all of this but magic and a person who could use magic that just happened to disappeared. Whether the rumors are truth or not, the town folks starting to look at the mages with suspicious eyes, tension between them and the mage community starting to build even without the tailor's cause of death reveal. Some of the victim's relatives openly accused White Cloud academy for the loss of their love one. On one day 2 apprentice mage go to the town tavern for a drink then the father of the missing teenage girl who was drowning his sorrows in the tavern come up to them, demanded some answered for his daughter's fate. The 2 mages try to ignore him at first until the man starting to insult White Cloud academy and punched one of them, the mage fought back and a brawl broke out. After the commotion, although Lord Lin had gave a fair judgment, he let the mages go free of charge and only give the teenage girl's father a slap on the wrist, the tension still persist. If things keep going on like this, pitchforks and angry mobs are inevitable even with Lord Lin effort to maintain public order, thus Lord Lin have to request the help of the imperial court. When the situation came to Emperor Lam's ears, he take interesting in this mysterious case and decided to investigate this himself. On the early morning of the next week, Emperor Lam arrived at Bai Ni, accompanied him aside of some court officials and servants are 200 Brocade Cloak Guard and 300 Lizardmen infantry.

What a strange creature these lizardmens are, they look humanoid except for their high, a short tail and a long snake like neck which contributed to their high to approximate 2 lias. Yellowish skin like of a Downer. Their arms are long especially the forearms and only have 4 fingers, forearms and hands covered in thick scale able to withstand light sword blows. They walk on their toes with a scaly, thick, bird like legs, long feet with 4 toes, each ended with a claw. Their face are extremely flat with scale around the eyes and the cheek bones area, no eyebrows and no visible nose, only 2 angular narrow slits fluttering every time they breath, located at the place where the nostrils supposed to be and a big row of scales run from above those slits to their forehead and end at the hairline. They have big and slanted eyes, with various shade of yellow and vertical pupils. Each of lizardmens also wearer a bronze choker around their neck, carved with ancient language characters with blue Quasium stone imbedded in every characters and a small diamond at the front of the choker. These choker are not some kind of accessory, and neither these lizardmens wearing them as such. These choker are a magical device and use as a control method, for these lizardmens are slave soldiers. If any lizardmens step out of line the choker will heat up and burn their skin cause extreme pain, and the choker even can bust into an intensive flame with just a simple spell and burn off the lizardmen's head if an oversee mage wish so.

Seeing Emperor Lam approaching the town gate, a middle age man wearing a blue and white cross collard robe and a couple of town guard came forth to greet His Majesty arrival.

"I, Pu Chin, secretary of Lord Lin, welcome Your Imperial Majesty to this humble town. Long live the emperor." Secretary Pu kneel down interlocked his fingers.

"what is the meaning of this? Where are Mayor Lin? Why he not personally greet His Marjesty arrival? Such insolent, is he have a death wish?" an official said.

"Your Grace, Lord Lin dare not such act. It's just… there are an angry mob right now at Bai Ni academy, he is with the town guards at the academy to prevent any regrettable incident happen." Secretary Pu said.

"what? Show me the way to the academy, quick!" Emperor Lam said

"Your Grace, just follow the main road and head to the north you will see the academy on a hill top." Secretary Pu say.

Leaved his escort behind Emperor Lam quickly rush through the town's main street to White Cloud academy, following him closely is a bald lizardmen name "Seven Fingers" captain of the lizardmens infantry company, he is quite big compare to his kin likely over 2 lias tall, muscular with a long scar from his left eye to his cheek, and missing a middle finger on the right hand. Although on foots Seven Finger still can keep up with Emperor Lam's velelis without falling behind too far. As Emperor Lam riding down the main street, he can clearly see the streets litter with debris, some of the house along the street have broken windows, the whole street look like a scene of a riot aftermath. After 10 minute, Emperor Lam can see the academy on the hill top north of the town, and he also can saw a crowd of peoples gathered at the academy gate. When he came close, the crowd were yelling at Lord Lin and the town guards and an old taosih at the gate, demanding an answer for what happened last night and all the victims. They seem very angry some even trying to barge through the guards, violent can broke out at any second.

Chapter end