Shuffle 2.5

Shuffle 2.5 is the fifth chapter of the Shuffle arc.

## Synopsis

Starting at the guild, Victor looks at the posters which are nearly all black and red. When a worker showed up at the office, he was about to ask for help when he was approached by three people who asked if he would be interested in joining in an on orange ranked quest.

Feeling uncertain about the group, beyond the fact he had a gut feeling they could be trusted more than the group he met in Orlayns Wave, Victor decided to ask someone else in the building what they thought of the trio. This resulted in the group doing a bit of arguing so he went to ask the guild worker a similar question where he was told they were a good trio who weren't opposed to getting filler members for certain jobs.

With that Victor told them he would take the job with a few stipulations such as knowing about the job and pay before formally accepting the offer. Because of his demands he is told that they are going to be going to a dragons graveyard to harvest the hides and possibly mana cores from some dead dragons.

As his payment was told to him, Victor quickly figured that he would get a ninth of the reward of three small silver coins as a result, whichever is larger so long as he does the job. In the end he decided to take them up on their job offer and the group of four started their journey towards the dragons graveyard.

During the trip, Victor got to know the three of them in various ways while they traveled until it was time to set up camp. While doing so he asked about finding a treasure hoard only to be laughed at.

This is when Victor learns that while many dragons will create a hoard, it isn't by default anything that people might consider treasure. While a hoard of treasure was possible, Cador mentioned that there were examples of dragons having hoards of rope, swords, and horses that he was aware of.

The next morning Victor cooked breakfast for everyone and learned that they had never ate a sandwich, which is what he ended up making for breakfast with the supplies they had.

Shortly after the group found themselves at the dragons grave, which Victor asked for information about.

He was told that some, but not all, colors of dragons would want to go to specific types of places when they were aware they were going to die and that the cave they went to tended to be a place green dragons found appropriate to die in.

Seeing the body of a dragon, Victor notes they aren't as big he expected and is told they tend to only get as big as two griffons.

After this the group did their job processing two dragon bodies, while Victor kept watch. During this time, he heard the trio singing a song often enough for him to memorize it and sing along.

*"The blackness of the sky shines through, the flames as they spread. Another day another death, of shimmering eyes betrayed."*

*"And while they march and scream and fight another wave approaches. When the flame cleared away its birth began to decay and the king's crown began to shine."*

*"Days went by and night returned, the moon filling up the sky, but nothing happened as the crown began to cry. Those from his past lost to the dark and light no longer shining. It's never the crown's life to be with just one as easily as the sun sets."*

Victor can't help but think that somehow the lyrics and melody pacing both do and don't match each other at the same time.

Examining what they were able to gather, Victor is told there is less material, but what they gathered appeared to be of higher quality.

Once they started camping out for the night, Victor went to practice a bit of fighting and when he returned he saw four figures around the campfire instead of the three he had expected.

## Characters

Victor Atkins

Evezi

Sanri

Cador

## Location

Green Rebirth

## Trivia

* Sunflower of ice wrote dragons as still having hoards, but not treasure hoards by default, due to thinking about how it wouldn't make sense for a society to use something for money if it was constantly being stolen by such dangerous creatures.