Lotorc

Lotorc is not the captain. That's the first thing you need to know about Lotorc, and quite often the first thing she'll tell any new person she meets. After all, as she is not the captain, she's not responsible for any of the actions of the Riftrunner's crew. The only thing she's responsible for is keeping them fed. And healthy, as she also specializes in medicine. She also keeps backups of all relevant research data and reference materials in case they fall victim to sudden destruction or consumption. Lotorc's job is simply to do what she can to keep an interplanar exploration team operating at the best of their abilities.

So no, she's not responsible for anything those aether dragons get up to. She merely enables them.

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Lotorc isn't a nature dragon. Both in the literal sense that she's not of that element, but also in the sense that she isn't much of a fan of the natural world. Oh, sure, she works with plants. Lotorc suspects she knows more about the biology of plants than most of the Gladekeeper's servants. But Lotorc doesn't respect the plants she works with. She breaks them under her claws. Warps them to her whims. The plants of Sornieth will give her what she wants, and in return they'll get to live a bit longer instead of going directly to the compost pile.

Usually, what Lotorc wants is medicine. Plague's blights are wildly varied, which means keeping other dragons healthy requires an equally wide selection of healing extracts. Lotorc is an experimenter, crossbreeding plants and infecting them with weaker versions of deadly diseases. Hopefully, the plants that survive will mutate into new forms that can refined into medicine that provides resistance or immunity. Or they'll wither and die, like the useless wastes of chlorophyll they are. Either option is fine with Lotorc. There's always more plants where the first ones came from.

However, what Lotorc does care about is unexpected variables messing with her experiments. How can she know which mutagen causes the desired changes if her plants are exposed to the chaos of nature? Every experiment needs to be conducted in a controlled laboratory environment, one that's as detached from nature as possible. These plants will never know the feeling of a natural spring breeze, or have the experience of being pollinated by one of Sornieth's horrifying twenty pound bees. They won't even get to know dirt!

That's because Lotorc's favoured method of cultivation is hydroponics. Plants growing in mineral and magic infused water. Free from the burdens of the soil. Kept in easily transportable trays in case another flower turns into some sort of terrifying but scientifically fascinating monster and the other samples need to be evacuated so that that chamber of the laboratory can be transformed into an observation room. Perhaps Lotorc shouldn't have progressed from growing plants in water to growing plants in samples of virulent Wyrmwound goop. But she wouldn't agree. She's at the cutting edge of medical science! If you don't want an injection of sap from that ambulatory toothed rose bush then that's your decision, but in Lotorc's tests its cured the gembond virus without any lasting side effects. Negative ones, anyways. It does make your blood smell like roses, but that's probably fine.

Yet it wasn't her skills in medicine that got her a position in the Riftrunner's crew. It was the simple fact that through hydroponics, Lotorc can grow anything, anywhere. That's what got her hired. To be precise, it got her hired six separate times. To the same position no less: gardener and quartermaster of the Riftrunner. The offer was fascinating. A position on a vessel designed for interplanar travel, and the only duty required of her was growing food for the crew. Apparently the captain was incredibly worried about starvation in an alternate reality — why else would they have repeatedly tried to recruit her? More interestingly, she would be free to do whatever else she wanted as long as the crew was kept fed. She could hardly imagine what plants might exist in other planes. What tinctures and extracts could she make by crushing those plants and distilling their oils? It would be devastating for the medical community if she didn't take this chance to explore the unknown.

But so far, most of what Lotorc's explored has been the eccentricities of her new crewmates. Not even one alternate reality. The Riftrunner doesn't even work yet! The so-called wonder of modern engineering lies immobile and unfinished, as extra features are constantly added while nobody ever gets around to making the propulsion systems work. It's probably Jerrence's job to finish that? Lotorc has no idea. If there's one thing these aethers haven't figured out, it's communication. Somehow, they all think they're the captain. She wasn't hired by one captain six times, all six of them each hired her one time! None of them have managed to figure out that they're all following separate plans and are just coincidentally reaching a final result that vaguely resembles teamwork. If teamwork was six dragons each giving each other orders and then leaving to go do their own thing, that is.

(The situation could be worse — she is getting six separate wages.)

Since it quickly became clear to Lotorc that the Riftrunner aethers would never succeed in their attempts to explore other dimensions, there's no good reason for her to have stuck around. But there was one bad reason: she can't resist the lure of adventure. Lotorc might not be an arcane dragon, but she's always felt some affinity with them. Like them, she's always yearned to explore space (or other dimensions). Her stoneform is even pink chalcedony, the foundation of the Starfall Isles. So even though she knows it's likely to eventually lead to her being lost in an alternate reality forever, she hasn't abandoned the Riftrunner crew.

And, to be fair to them, the other Riftrunner dragons have their talents. Quant can work wonders with magical walls and wards, while Jerrence truly is a skilled pilot. Embryes is superb at keeping things organized and passing along messages, even if she's absolutely terrible at listening to any of them. Kirko has an uncanny ability to sense danger, while if Cyrus wasn't so arrogant Lotorc might be willing to admit he may be more intelligent than she is. And Loblolly's a talented diplomat with a knack for learning languages... and she's also trying really hard on that friendly face thing. If they actually worked together, they'd be able to face the dangers of a thousand alternate universes.

So Lotorc's started directing things from behind the scenes. Not a lot — her own cultivation projects are still more important. But she's been giving each of the 'captains' advice. Letting them know what they can do to be a good role model for the rest of the crew. Pointing out which challenges the rest of the crew is counting on their valiant captain to overcome. Ordering them to either work together on what actually needs to be done or be the test subjects for her latest anti-bacterial tonic.

But that doesn't make Lotorc the actual captain. Not a chance. She's not ready for that kind of responsibility.

Just the responsibility of being the greatest medical dragon ever and saving millions of lives for Lotorc, thanks.