357
Morning ‘dawned’ with the darkness fading into the ocean, revealing clear blue skies, fluffy clouds, and a trailing wing bone passing overhead, raining down onto the ocean and into the holes in Kabberjaw’s skull. Mark hadn’t noticed it at first, until the rain flowed in, but there was a long hole at the top of the nasal space, leading all the way back, into the brain space. Mark had flown up there to get a better look at midnight, and that was when he saw a clear line from the gaping wound all the way into where the brain used to be.
Some great thinghad spiked a ‘sword strike’ straight through Kabberjaw’s skull, long, long ago.
Whatever that thing had been, whatever kinda weapon it had used, was gone now.
And Mark went back to patrolling around the ship.
And then it was morning, and people started waking.
Mark began the day with Union of Sustenance for everyone, linking to all of the plants in the holds, saying, “Morning.”
Isoko yawned as she floated beside him, saying, “Morning!” She sighed and shook out her body, the air curling around the Dreadnought and gently jostling Stronghold’s shipping boats, as fishermen and women moved out into the open waters. Isoko sighed. “You do Sustenance a lot better than I can.”
“You did well with healing at Raptor.”
“Ehhhh… Kinda. It was not how I’m used to Unioning at all, but...” Isoko grinned brightly. “My range is bigger than yours, for sure.”
Mark snorted.
Isoko’s vector turned truly happy. “Anything happen last night? With Derek, or whatever?”
“Derek got welcomed well, and then he multiplied too much and some guards killed him to keep him contained.”
Isoko’s mirth faded and she woke up all the way. “… Shit?”
“I’m not sure howit happened, but I know all Derek didwas go around, probably where he wasn’t welcomed, and then it actually got heated when Derek purposefully provoked them by talking about Freyala. And then he dared them to kill him.”
“… uhhh.” Isoko asked, “Fuck?”
“Yeah. That was about my reaction, too, but then nothing else happened so...” Mark said, “On one hand, you have a guy who doesn’t die, and he told them that, and then he dared them to kill him. On the other side you have people who did as requested, and it wasn’t a fight. Derek stood down and dared them, and they executed him. He didn’t fight back at all.” Mark added, “They killed 17 out of 18 of him, to be precise. They left one around and Derek is pissedat them.”
Isoko was silent, thinking.
Mark continued, “In other news, Derek managed to survive outside of Stronghold just fine, both at Raptor and on his hoverboat. The light kept the nightmares away completely, but he also took pot shots with spotlights aimed at giant dark leviathans. I saw a video of it, and passing that spotlight over a leviathan was like sweeping 5-meter-thick monowire through foam; instant obliteration. So, to experiment, Derek turned the light down to minimum and the darkness came on his hoverboat but it didn’t actually hurt him except mentally, inflicting living terrors. Then Derek went for a real swim and some giant things ate him, but with some minimal light he was fine, even in the water.
“But there are actual monster fish out there, like anglerfish with their own light sources, and those are drawn to the light of others to eat them, since they can’t eat nightmares. Derek got eaten by those eventually.
“So it’s been something of a night.” Mark finished with, “So there’s no pleasantries today, and no feast, and no town exploration. When everyone is ready to go, we’ll meet the Chief and the Skull Guard at a courtyard they have set up over there.” He pointed to an open space to the far left of the main city, saying, “There.”
The space was in the middle of nowhere, in a part of the ‘city’ that had been demolished and left damaged for centuries. Trees grew up from cracks in the ground and vines decorated the crumbling roofs of many houses.
Isoko looked outward and rapidly came to the same conclusion as Mark had hours ago, saying, “I didn’t really notice it but only… about… 20% of the ‘city’ is inhabited?”
“Quark estimates 1%, actually, and we don’t have visuals on the deeper parts of the metropolis back there, all covered in trees. So maybe only half a percent, if you get down to it. Maybe less. They have done a really good job of keeping the lights on everywhere, but the population seems to be in freefall, or something.”
Isoko nodded a little. By now she had had enough time to think about Derek, and about not being allowed to buy food. She said, “Let’s fulfill our obligations for aid to secure hunting rights in the nearest parts of Endless Daihoon, and get going.”
Mark nodded. “Yup. My current plan is to meet with Chief Mara Kellan at that open courtyard with Derek and Lola and then have Eliot come in with you and Sally later, but plans can change...”
After breakfast, and after the full discussion with the team and the review of last night’s surveillance logs, plans did change.
Mark hopped onto an open-air hovercraft with Eliot, Sally, Lola, and Andria.
David, Tartu, and Isoko stayed on board the Dreadnought.
Beyond the inhabited lines of the city, just a short way into the jungle that was really a ruined metropolis, Mark descended on the hovercraft, into a vast and open courtyard. Skull Hall had done up the courtyard in the last 24 hours, cleaning away debris, patching up walls, and unfurling bright blue and white cloth and flags on the buildings. Glowing skulls held those fluttering fabrics onto the sides of ancient structures, while a vast array of ingots of all kinds lay on carpets unfurled to the left side of the courtyard.
There was a lot of metal.
On the right side of the courtyard was a delegation, and Derek.
The delegation was two people. Chief Mara Kellan, who was dressed in a white-scaled formal dress, and Skull Guard Leader Wang Lo, whom Mark had interacted with on the radio a few times already. Lo wore white-scaled armor. Might have actually been bone; hard to tell. Both of the people from Stronghold and all of their guards lined up on the wall back there were kinda mad. Some were incandescent with rage and hiding it, while others were worried about the future. Most people seemed to be a mix of the two extremes. No one was happy about this, but they were doing it anyway.
Derek waved up at Mark, presenting a good face. This version of him was pissed as fuck, but he was hiding it well.
Sally set the hovercraft down and Eliot made some steps unfurl to the side. They took the stairs.
Mark simply hopped out on caltrops and floated down to the ground level.
Derek said, “Thank Freyala you’re here!”
Everyone from Stronghold flinched or got angry at the mention of ‘Freyala’.
Mark said, “I’m here now, Derek.”
“Good! I’m done with this iteration! I hate being this angry,” Derek said, and then he promptly poofed away into nothing.
Mark spoke into the comms, “Better, Derek?”
Derek, on the ship, said, “God damn… yeah. Fuck those guys, though. They’re tyrants! I suppose it fits, what with the dragons being tyrants, too!”
Mark nodded a little, and then he walked toward Chief Mara and Leader Lo, saying, “Greetings. It has been an interesting night.”
Chief Mara was in no mood for pleasantries, but she endured anyway and said, “Your man demanded we kill him if we wanted to be rid of him.”
“And you wanted to be rid of him,” Mark said, leaving it at that.
Mara frowned, regarding Mark again. “… How old are you?”
Mark skipped answering that demeaning question, and said, “Obviously y’all are under no obligation to accept aid. We only want to fulfill our obligation to Elkatracks to get free reign to hunt in the nearby lands of the Northern Crossing. So how about we do that and we don’t have to be friends at all, and you can tell us the last known location was of that grav crystal, and we can go out and get it ourselves. I think you said something about raiders, as well? I’d like to know about those guys, too.”
Mara stood a bit straighter, her vector calming considerably. She nodded magnanimously, and said, “That is acceptable, but I have words to share with you, first. I need you to know that the only reason this land has survived as long as it has is because of our worship of Kabberjaw. You threaten that when you come in here with your other gods.” Mara stood tall, proclaiming, “We can trace our lineage to ancient times, to The Dragon King, and to his final form of Kabberjaw, which is what the King became when he took in countless aberrant demons to become what he needed to become to prevent the World Collapse.
“I know they speak of Magefalls on Daihoon, and on Earth. I know they say that when the Dragon King died, everything fell apart, and that much is true. The System He Wrote broke. The demons fractured into a scattered disaster. The dragons killed who they could. That is whathappened, but that is not howit happened at all. That is not whyit happened.
“The Dragon King saved everyone and damned himself to never-ending death, and the wyrms of Daihoon broke everything further, when they moved upon what was not theirs to grasp. It happened again in the Reveal, so it should be no strange thing to believe that it happened 7,000 years ago, as well.”
… Ah, okay.
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Mark stood strong, not sure about what he was hearing at all.
Mark did notexpect to hear about the Dragon King, or about how Kabberjaw was the Dragon King’s former body. He did not expect to hear differing timelines of the ‘System He Wrote’ getting mixed up with the timelines for the theoretical split of Daihoon from Earth, and with the Dragon King’s final known existence; Mark had heard 7,000 years ago for the first one and 4,000 years ago for the second. But Mara was saying it was the same event?
Mark couldn’t help but feel that Elkatracks or Quatrok wanted Mark to hear this.
To be fair, Mark wanted to hear this, too.
Chief Mara locked eyes with Mark, and continued, “He is dead, but he yet lives, for the Dragon King’s eternal death also protects us from the nightmares of the rest of the Darklight, and we protect him in turn, as we wait for his return from that eternal death. Those nightmares out there, in the dark are the Dragon King processing the horrors of the worlds. If the nightmares should ever mirror the Ancient Enemy ever again, he will rise and do as only he could do.
“The Dragon King will save us all, again.
“Our worship is not a trifling thing. We protect him with our worship, and he will protect us all, eventually.
“So you physicallyharm us when you bring in these other, aberrant gods, born of whatever secularism deluded them into being.” Mara took a deep breath. She calmed. She said, “Please do not interfere in our lives, our culture, or our ability to defend ourselves. If you want to truly help, if you want to be allowedinto this land after you finish what Honored Farhowlahas bargained for, then you can go out there and find the raiders who continually tear this land apart. The dragons are only here to help in the case of absolute disaster. We must help ourselves in all other ways, and so, we need 3 people and their cohorts executed.
“Captain Grey, Mist Sister, Bone-Knife.
“Three smuggler groups. Three groups of raiders.
“Each of them working at odds with Stronghold to tear us apart from the inside, though it’s not like they need much help considering we’re bleeding people like a stuck fish. Every day, more people migrate to the heretic state Raptor, and Skybones thinks we should all just die down here for not being pious enough.” Mara finished with, “The goods you will give us today will help us repair and expand much of the defenses of the city, and so we thank you for that, Mister Careed.”
It felt like blocks had fallen into place.
Mark felt like an asshole for running roughshod over these people, but he still felt like they were assholes themselves and they didn’t even know it, but… whatever.
Mark bowed, and said, “I apologize for thinking unkind thoughts. I did not know that Worship kept the lights on.”
Chief Mara Kellan, Skull Guard Leader Wang Lo, and the guards, seemed to cool, tempers calming.
Mara said, “Our ancestors tell us that hundreds of years ago, when we had 20 million people in Stronghold, and Skybones and Raptor were the gardeners and the fishermen, the entire skeleton of Kabberjaw used to glow, even in the deepest dark. The waters were still not something you wantedto swim in at night, but you could, even at the very edge of Kabberjaw’s space, which was a lot further out than it is right now. The mortal dragons were a lot more plentiful back then, as well. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the degradation began, but it happened, and then the Reveal happened, and a million invaders went to war with a million residents, and most fled.
“Now we’re down to maybe 47,000 people, with 25,000 here in Stronghold and the rest scattered between Raptor and Skybones, and also a raider community full of killers, thieves, and smugglers.
“If you want your grav crystal back, then it was likely taken by one of them. Captain Grey, I believe. I do apologize again for Shrine Keeper Sela Vonn’s dispensing of that crystal, but to be fair, you did weaken our power over the disruptive Raptorians, and you are bringing false gods into our land…” Mara moved on. “Skull Guard Leader Wang Lo will have more details about your missing grav crystal.” Chief Mara bowed, and then said, “May your dreams be peaceful.”
Mara walked away and half of the guard left with her, marching in time to her footsteps.
And then they were gone.
Wang Lo remained, saying, “There was a third to be here, but Shrine Keeper Sela Vonn was rather less able to contain her rage than the Chief. Perhaps some of that rage will be gone after today, and the next time we meet we can share a nice big meal?”
Mark decided to say, “Sounds like a fine thing, Leader Wang Lo.”
Wang Lo grinned, and it was a true grin, his vector relieved. “Shall we get to the crafting, Mister Careed?”
“Sure. So allyou really want are wood-fire generators and lights? Because Eliot can do a lot more than that…”
There was little expansion to the order the Elkatracks had put in, with Wang Lo adhering to the letter of the request and saying twice that he didn’t want to ‘disturb scales’, which meant something like ‘ruffle any feathers’. He did ask for some radio broadcasting equipment, though.
Mark ended up asking, “What about laser lights?”
Wang Lo looked like Mark had slapped him. “NO no no! Never.”
Mark said, “Okay.”
An hour later Mark was back on the hovercraft with Eliot, Sally, Lola, and Andria.
Andria had been deeply quiet and thinking the whole time Eliot had been crafting.
Soon, they were back on the Dreadnought and behind Eliot’s Castellan wards—
Lola asked, “What occurs, Miss Metallicmore?”
Andria said, “Pluta wanted me to come here to hear that story straight from Chief Mara… I think we need to kill the raiders.”
Mark scoffed, almost saying ‘no’ in reflex.
But Lola’s vector solidified as she said, “A prudent action, and it would leave them a lot better off than handing out gifts. No offense, Eliot.”
Eliot said, “I’m with you on that! I can do a lot for the average person, but at the end of the day if there are systemic problems then pouring resources into a place like this is fueling future issues. And the raiders here have my crystal. So… Yeah. Maybe not kill, but definitely visit.”
Sally said, “Probably capture and turn in to Stronghold, yeah?”
“… And now I’mhaving a crisis of faith,” Mark said. “Surely I’m not alone thinking that we should just do good works and then leave? I don’t want to kill people.”
Lola straight up told him, “No one wantsto kill people, Mark.”
Isoko descended from the sky, joining the conversation with a, “Maybe meeting the raiders will convince us to take down Stronghold instead?”
Lola said, “It is possible, and we should surely keep an eye on that possibility. These people are clearly living under a repressive regime and those tend to breed rebels that the people in charge would call ‘raiders’ just to demonize them. The actual tale is likely more complicated than we can know, but if they are constantly losing people to exodus, then it can only be the fault of their own governing, and so…”
Lola opened up a rather large conversation about the ethics of messing with cultures.
Mark sat on the forecastle, thinking, listening to it all, as David turned the Dreadnought toward the harbor exit, and put the ship into forward. Everyone was still talking about raiders when Eliot started doing long-range scans and sending out drones to massively increase the search area, as well as to spy on people in the marketplaces of Stronghold to see if they knew where the raiders were.
Mark was thinking about that story of the Dragon King, and how the people of Kabberjaw were worshiping Kabberjaw.
Mark quietly asked Quark, “Bring up that book on Worship that was in the Walaria files, please.”
Quark flickered a few illusions of the ‘Book of Worship’, Volume 1, 2, and 3 into Mark’s vision. They were old books with slightly tattered covers. Volume 1 was titled ‘Worship As A Language Of Power’ while Volumes 2 and 3 were ‘Religions Of The Two Worlds And How They Work From A Secular Perspective’. Daihoon was Volume 2 while Earth was Volume 3. Mark mimed opening up the first book, and the illusion moved at his gesture, flipping open for him and then hovering there, letting him read the table of contents.
“Is there something in particular you are searching for?” Quark asked.
Mark said, “They Worship Kabberjaw to keep the lights on... I don’t know what it was, but… It feltkinda wrong? Elaria once said that you gave your mana to an icon or person and depending on how you give your mana, you can take it back in certain ways for certain effects. Also, the person/thing you give your mana to could do things with it as well. She said something about a 50% return, so Worship was basically mana storage, but in specific ways.
“Light-based ways? Seems reasonable, for Kabberjaw. Skulls that are lights? Sure.
“And then here’s Kabberjaw. Eternally dead, to hear Chief Mara talk about it… Which is weird, right? Shouldn’t you be worshiping for the life of Kabberjaw? To come back to life, I mean…” Mark hummed as he read over the contents of Volume 1, and then flipped through to the general overview. “I don’t know enough about religion and Worship.” Mark glanced back to the castle, where Isoko was hovering outside of the observation deck, talking with Lola. Everyone else was sort of scattered but still participating in the deep conversation about raiders… Mark turned back to his illusionary book, saying, “I’ll ask Lola, David, and Tartu about Worship after I’ve read some.” He added, “And Derek, too.”
As the Dreadnought pulled out into the full sunshine, Mark read about religions, from a Mage Society perspective, while Eliot sent out a fleet of scanning drones, like little geodesic balls attached to small jet engines with wings. Those little drones went flying fast into the blue sky, almost in formation, only to split off and suddenly curve toward every direction.