Character interaction artwork for Saared, featuring my mischievous serval Nimah fleeing their rather angry dragon Samuel after getting caught stealing his spellbook. Run kitty run!

Got to design Samuel's outfit for this one, and painted over some 3d assets for the background.

The rest of this interaction plays out in a short story I wrote to accompany this artwork. Check it out below!

The dragon, Samuel ©  Saared
Nimah / artwork ©  Blizzmaster

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"Borrowing" A Spellbook

“RETURN THAT TOME, THIEF”, Samuel shouted.

The pale-green scaled dragon’s eyes lit up with a brilliant blue glow, fixed upon the feline intruder attempting to escape his shop. A minute earlier, the strangely dressed serval woman had entered his store and inquired about spell books and scrolls. He’d briefly left the front of his shop unattended to retrieve one of the items she’d asked for, and upon his return, the serval had his personal spell book in her paws, heading towards the exit.

Spooked by the dragon’s booming voice, Nimah’s feline reflexes kicked in and she leaped towards the open door of the shop. Samuel drew upon his vast reserves of arcane power, focusing water elemental energy in his hand and flinging it at the fleeing burglar. The watery blasts narrowly missed their target and slammed into the wooden wall behind Nimah as she reached the open doorway.

Nimah spun around to see large icy patches form on the wall where the orbs of water hit. Were a single one of those to hit me, I might be frozen solid, she thought. She taunted the dragon with a grin and a wave, took a couple steps backward, then spun around to run down the cobblestone street as a large blast of water crashed through the doorway where she’d been standing a second ago. Despite the situation, she couldn’t help but admire the dragon’s mastery of water. If she weren’t currently stealing Samuel’s spell book, she might consider asking him for a magic lesson.

While she pondered her escape route, she stole a glance at the spell book and was reminded why she’d come here in the first place. A huge, glowing sapphire gem, inlaid into the cover of the spell book, sparkled in the daylight. Whatever secrets the tome contained, the real value to Nimah was in that gemstone. She clutched the book tightly in her arm as she ran, fantasizing about the hundreds – or thousands – of gold she could get by selling that gemstone to some rich noble a couple towns away.

She was shaken from her fantasies by a glowing orb of water whizzing past her head. She turned to look and saw Samuel already outside his shop. Water magic raged around him in a torrent, forming into still more glowing watery orbs. He roared and launched a flurry of several blasts directly at Nimah.

Too many to avoid… she thought, eyes widening with concern. I’ll have to use some of my own watery tricks!

Nimah summoned forth her own elemental powers, her eyes alight with a bright violet hue as elemental energies rushed through her body and outwards into the twin strips of cloth that flowed down from her outfit’s collar. The cloth came alive at once, lengthening and twisting into two flowing streams of viscous liquid. She extended a paw backwards towards the incoming volley of water blasts and the watery cloth shot out, one coiling around her arm and forming a small shield at the end to block some of the blasts, while the other stream whipped back and forth behind her, deflecting still more of the dangerous orbs away.

“You’re not the only water mage around here, dragon!” Nimah called back to Samuel, as she continued to race away from the angry shopkeeper. Her defenses held for the moment as her flowing garments continued to absorb and deflect the blasts the shopkeeper threw her way. Scanning the town ahead, she saw a busy market a few streets down, along the town’s dock. Perfect, I’ll lose him in the crowds, she thought, racing towards her salvation and another successful escape.

A moment later, the barrage of water blasts stopped around her. Nimah stole a final glance backwards to see if Samuel had given up, but instead saw no trace of the dragon. She slowed down to scan around, but only saw a few startled townsfolk taking shelter from the deluge of water blasts slamming into the street and walls. A large canal built through the center of the street burbled down towards the open waters at the town’s shoreline.

She turned back towards the docks, convinced she’d outrun the dragon. However, she took no more than a few steps forward before the murmur from the canal began to grow louder. Her eyes widened, realizing her mistake of using an escape route next to the flowing water of the town’s canal.

The waters of the canal burst upwards, and a huge spout of water rushed up and towards Nimah. At its front, the water twisted and formed the shape of a dragon’s head, its maw gaping wide and eyes raging with the same blue glow of Samuel's. Nimah shrieked, dropping the spell book, and flinging her twin strips of liquid cloth in front of her in a feeble attempt to defend herself. The water dragon crashed straight through her defense and into her, blasting her backwards into the wall of a building and pinning her against it with unrelenting pressure.

Several seconds later, the crushing force of the waterspout subsided, and Nimah slumped down onto the ground against the wall, coughing up water as her lungs heaved desperately for air. After a minute, she was able to regain some of her composure and looked up to see Samuel towering over her, an annoyed glare on his face. He held his spell book in his hands, dripping wet from their altercation.

“Tsk tsk, little pussycat,” Samuel chided. “You must not be from around here if you have the nerve to try and steal from me. Anything to say for yourself?” He crossed his arms, staring at the soaking wet cat burglar on the ground.

“Sorry about trying to steal your book, I just can’t help myself around jewels that big and shiny,” she said meekly. Nimah stood herself up, shaking off some of the water and letting her elemental powers handle the rest, absorbing it in through her fur. At the same time, she pointed a single clawed finger at the book in Samuel’s hand, and the water soaking the pages rushed out towards her. It formed around her padded finger in a glob, then was quickly absorbed inside her. She looked sheepishly at the dragon as Samuel raised an eyebrow at the serval’s odd use of water magic.

“Anything I can do to make it up to you?” she asked.

Samuel mused about how to deal with the mischievous serval for a moment. Her way of using water magic was odd, and not something he’d ever seen before. It was as if she wasn’t taught magic, or even studied it, rather it was simply a part of her being. He had to know more, so perhaps she could pay for her missteps by satisfying his curiosity…

“First off, you’ll be buying that scroll you asked for, at FULL price.” Samuel decided, motioning for the serval to follow him back to his shop. “Then I’m sure you’ll want to see the other four scrolls that go with it, they’re a great introduction to the basics of water magic. An absolute steal of a deal, I assure you.”

Samuel studied Nimah for a second.

“Then, you and I are going to talk about your way of using water magic. It’s strange, unrefined, and yet…” he paused, flipping through the now-dry pages of his spell book, then snapping it shut.

“…full of potential.”

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