Defenders of the Niece, Volume III, chapter four, “The First Princess.”

Disaster! The worshipers of Sablar, worm god of destruction, have made their way to the New World! The vile Frank the Anark has captured Oriane, princess of the wood elves tribes! Everywhere, evil triumphs!

But a hero has come! The beautiful dragon Jolie, eager to rescue princesses everywhere (so she can keep them for safekeeping), tracked down the villain to his lair in the heart of the jungle. At her sides are the Shining Knight, Kia Bekele, and the fearsome Kobold Rangers, bane of rabbits and Defenders of the Niece. Together, they can overcome any princessnapper.

But the opposition is strong. As they approach the enemy’s stronghold, the air grows foul and thick with the stench of poverty…

Jolie, dragon [Paladin] adventurer, shivered in excitement. Today was the day.

The day when she would become an adult by capturing her first princess, all by herself! An elf princess!

True, her uncle had once given her one for her Bragging Day, but to be acknowledged as a true princess hunter, a dragon had to claim a maiden by themselves. Unwilling to abduct a manling, since they had feelings, the young dragon had crossed the ocean on a ship towards the New World. The one place where elves still had tribes large enough to produce princesses.

After a long search, they had finally located a fair maiden… only to discover that the evil cult of Sablar had abducted her first! Confronted with her duty to gather all princesses for safekeeping, Jolie had immediately given chase to the villains.

Maybe she would gain her thirtieth level while at it?

“Kia?” Jolie asked her best friend, as they moved through the dense jungle. The Kobold Rangers surrounded the young dragon from all sides as her true defenders, while her own armor’s noise made birds and insects fly away.

“Yes, Jolie?” Kia responded, cutting vines with her shiny blade.

“Are there Perks that can drop princesses?”

The knight paused and glanced at her dragon squire. “I’m sorry?”

“Uncle has a Perk that showers him with gold when he is awesome. If I become marvelous like him, will I be showered with princesses?”

“Jolie, that is not how the [Gladiator] class works, at all.”

“But can it be done with another class?” Red asked, curious. “If Chief Victor can summon skulls, can a dragon summon princesses?”

“I… maybe?” The knight shrugged her shoulders. “I haven’t heard of any class like this, but you cannot rule out the possibility.”

A [Princess Maker] class? Awesome! Jolie couldn’t wait to gain it!

The young dragon’s [Virgin Princess Radar] bleeped, causing her to raise her head in excitement. Her maiden sense wasn’t as powerful as her uncle’s, but she could sense her target nearby. “She’s near!” she said giddily. “Very near!”

“Looks like we found the cult,” Kia said, pointing a sword through the foliage. Jolie and the rangers peaked above her shoulder, gazing at a large camp full of tents. While tall grass usually covered the ground, the entire area had been scourged of vegetation, leaving only dry dirt. As she focused on the source of the princess signal, Jolie noticed a huge, closed stone gate at the northern edge of the camp.

“Alright, if we are discreet, we can take them by surprise,” Kia hushed to the group, before frowning as she caught a glimpse of flags in the middle of the camp. Each of them had the symbol of a badly drawn blue planet on their surface. “At my signal, one, two, three—”

“Oh, visitors!” Kia froze, as an orc came from the camp to welcome them, spoiling the infiltration. “Have you heard about Orknoob our Savior? He died on Earth for our sins!”

“What is an Orknoo—”

“Don’t ask!” Kia interrupted Blue before he could ask the question, sounding more annoyed than she had ever been. “Don’t encourage them!”

“Is this not the camp of Sablar?” Pink asked.

“Oh, the cult of Sablar has always supported the Esoteric Order of the New World,” the orc said. “In their own words, ‘the sooner you all reincarnate on another planet and leave this one a lifeless husk, the better.’ Their priests are very kind and do their best to supply us with carts. You can find their leader Frank in the north of the camp if you’re here to meet him.”

“Infiltration successful!” Jolie said gleefully, while Kia put her hand on her face for some reason.

“Milady is so cute that all these peons can only do as she wants!” Red flattered her.

“Anyway,” the orc said. “If you want I would gladly tell you all about the teachings of Orknoob our Savi—”

“We’ll be on our way, thank you,” Kia interrupted him.

“Oh, can I get spells from this guy?” Blue asked. “I am looking to convert away from Mithras, too restrictive.”

“Oh, unfortunately, no, Orknoob doesn’t offer special classes. But, but, if you donate to the true church, they can show you the path to Japan, where everyone is a school—”

“Next,” Jolie’s chief of staff interrupted the conversation yet again, raising her voice this time.

“Yes, no time to waste!” Jolie said, fired up by her dragon paladin instincts. “We will defeat all these villains and rescue Princess Oriane! For my hoard!”

“For the hoard!” the rangers shouted in response, uncaring about warning the puny orcs.

“Jolie, we cannot keep an elf hostage,” Kia protested, unable to understand the tenets of Cattletarianism. The orc looked at them as if they were mad and then departed without a word. “They’re almost extinct!”

“But Kia, it is fine to keep elf princesses! Elves do not have souls!”

“Jolie, we already had this discussion. Elves may be vegetarian, that doesn’t make them cows.”

“But that is what the Elder Wyrm said when it created the world!” Jolie protested. “It made grass to feed cows! Hence anyone who only eats grass is cattle!”

“And what about a human vegetarian? Are they cows too?”

“Silly Kia, if a manling abstains from eating meat, then it is no different from me abstaining from eating manlings!”

The shining knight surrendered in front of Jolie’s implacable dragon logic. “This discussion will wait until we actually rescue the princess.”

Spurred on, Jolie ran through the orc camp with her minions in toes, the local orcs looking at her in amazement of her dragonliness. “Sorry, sorry!” Kia pleaded with the locals, as the dragon paladin crushed a few carts and card games on her way to the gate.

Soon, Jolie found herself right in front of the stone doors sticking out from the ground, and there she found the princess kept in a steel cage.

She was perfect in every way, a beautiful, dark-skinned elf with green hair and shiny jewels that radiated princessness. Even in the face of capture and surrounded by orc dung, she looked dignified.

Her jailers were a trio of orcs, two of them thugs armed to the teeth with axes and knives, and the third something else entirely. The leader overshadowed his minions by more than a head, pushing more than eight feet in size and examining symbols on the stone doors. Thick steel armor covered most of his body save the arms, with a planet-eating worm symbol painted on his chest. The monster breathed through a strange mask with a tube linking the mouth to his back, leaving only vicious eyes exposed.

All turned at Jolie’s group with frustration, as the dragon and her minions formed a line to face them.

“That thing is an orc?” Even Kia seemed perplexed in the face of such a fearsome princessnapper.

“He’s enormous!” Blue complained. “He’s as big as a troll!”

“I’m Frank the Anark!” the villain boasted, glancing at the heroes of justice with annoyance. “Who the Happyland are you?”

“Jolie Dragon, greatest dragon paladin in the WOOOORLD!” Jolie howled to the sun, while her rangers clapped in response. “I have come to rescue the princess from your clutches, vile villain!”

“Another, other rescuer?” The orc let out a growl of rage. “Could you goody-two-shoes please mind your own business? I ain’t hurting your princess or anything!”

“We know you stole her from the Wood Elf Tribe!” Pink recounted the orc’s crimes. “That you intend to sacrifice her to the vile Sablar!”

“Sacrifice… oh, that’s what it’s all about, right?” The orc’s eyes turned disdainful. “Just because we are orcs worshiping the god of destruction and abduct an elf maiden, you think we will sacrifice her? Like savages?”

“... yes?” Kia answered the stupid question.

“Well, that’s racial stereotyping! All we will do is dump her on the other side of that planar gate, alongside these idiots,” the orc pointed at the camp. “As soon as we figure out how to open the doorway.”

“W-why?” Jolie couldn’t grasp her head around his ill-intent. “Why kick a princess through a door to nowhere?”

“Because princesses represent the aging establishment, and Sablar thrives on its destruction!” Frank the Evil ranted. “And destroy civilization we shall! We’ll create a world without rulers, without kings! Without queens!”

“Without princesses?” Jolie panicked.

“Without princesses!”

The words echoed through Jolie’s skull like a haunting echo, filling her mind with images of an apocalyptic future. A world of darkness, where dragons would roam the world without purpose, without princesses to shelter.

Charisma check successful! [Terror] negated!