409
Being dead was kinda funky, Mark thought, as he suddenly stood on the porch of his house, looking out at burning black skies filled with Elemental Death mana.
A quiet sort of black fire ate at Mark’s house, burning the porch, burning the walls, burning the grass. It hurt in a way that Mark didn’t want to hurt, so he grabbed the hose on the side of the house, which was some sort of extension of the Mage Society Understanding that Mark had signed with Walaria, with the many ribbons looking more like hoses… which was a thing? Sure. Why not. Mark started putting out the flames in his soul—
Sound returned suddenly, and a great flapping and roar came with it.
Black talons gripped all of Mark’s spherical body.
Three death mana towers still shot black beams of death into the sky, but they weren’t aimed at Mark anymore. They were aimed at Addavein, at the giant, speedy kaiju gripping Mark between two black talons, like he was clutching a black pearl. Massive shields of adamantium spun in the air between Mark’s talzarki and the diamond towers, blocking the still-working death beams, as Addavein flew fast, higher and higher, further and further. Black death cascaded down into the cityscape lands below, into everywhere, except onto Mark and them.
Ah.
That was what Mark had tried to avoid.
But…
Ah.
Verdant Citadel vanished behind them, and Mark—
Was everyone okay?
Oh gods, were they—
The ship started expanding inside of Mark, and Sally’s voice echoed through a static-filled-Quark-connection, “Mark! Open the shell! FUCK!”
Like a dying man realizing he wasn’t dead yet, and in the way that all battles wound down, Mark pulled himself back to a body and everything was too much.
Time passed rapidly as Addavein flew faster, over an ocean now, and then slower, as the Dreadnought expanded into the air and everyone was talking and Eliot was fixing the ship again. Mark was quiet, except for a few ‘I’m alright’s that he said several times, but mostly he laid on the forecastle of the ship, thanking all the gods of the Pantheon… and for some really hateful reason, he also felt some thanks toward Thrashtalon and Kardi. It fucking SUCKED to have even a fraction of thanks for those Cultist guys.
All of that had sucked!
Addavein seemed to be having a wondrous time, though, laughing as he answered someone’s question, because of course he had asked for Eliot to make some larger comms so he could talk freely, so everyone’s voices were out in the air, booming on stadium-speakers.
“I don’t think I could do that again without serious difficulty,” Addavein said, wings wide, silver draconic smile seeming wider. “The defenses of the Empires are nothing to scoff at, but Mark had Aluatha on his side, fighting a historical battle of witchery against witchery, and I took advantage of that… and of about 50 years of subterfuge of my father that I’m surprised was still working! Ah ha!”
“Thank you, Addavein,” Mark said, as he sat up on the forecastle and looked at his ‘brother’. Mark Called out, “Did the people at the city die when the Death cascaded onto them?”
Addavein regarded Mark for a moment, then solemnly said, “When Okuana chose to fire those weapons, they chose to have people die. How they chose to react to your homecoming says more about them than it does about you.”
“... Ah,” Mark uttered.
Addavein grinned at him, and then his rumbling avalanche of a voice became something barely brighter, asking, “I am hearing things on my scry network about your trip, and Eliot has made this nifty little cheat sheet about all of your new Skills… I am seeing some pretty amazing things from your team. Say, Sally, is it?” Addavein looked to the Dreadnought’s Castle, asking, “Think you could shrink me down to human-sized? I want to experience this new world order from the ground floor!”
Sally flummoxed on the comms for a moment, going, “Gah… Uhhhh? You know… Me?”
“He’s a spy who spies, Sally, of course he knows everyone’s names,” Mark offhandedly said to the big silver dragon, exhausted and not very afraid right now.
Addavein grinned. “But you haven’t introduced me! So it’s not polite to do things that sort of way.”
“Ah, sure,” Mark said, taking everything in stride. “Let’s get somewhere safe, first.”
“Excellent!” Addavein said, “Let’s find one of the little islands on the other side of the ocean. There are several in this direction that should be large enough.”
“… Sure.”
Sally said quietly on the comms to Mark, “I don’t know if I can do what he’s asking for.”
Addavein heard anyway, because he said cheerfully, “It will be you trying to shrink, Sally, and then Isoko channeling that into me because I am rather sure she can do that without affecting herself, and then I’ll do most of the work.”
Sally sputtered into the open comms, “I could… fucking try, I gu— You won’t… you might not stay the same… Non-living things get weird when they shrink, and you got a lot of non-living things on you.”
“I know how the Skill works, and it works well on living things, up to a certain point. We always theorized that it would work on dragons, if they allowed it to work! The scales will fall away and much of the detritus of being a kaiju will follow; it is expected,” Addavein said, “I simply need you to reach out and try, in an appropriate location. You and Isoko.”
An argument was brewing that no one wanted to have, but Tartu thought they should have. He hadn’t said anything, but he was about to.
Mark forestalled that argument, injecting his voice with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, “Let’s try, Sally! And Isoko!”
Isoko muttered something too quiet to hear, but it was similarly in line with Sally’s feelings.
Mark’s enthusiasm fell flat, too.
He was exhausted. Everyone was. Whatever the fuck had happened back there had been… big—
“Dominant is on the comms,” Derek said, voice worried and fragile. “He’s, uh… notapologizing, but he kinda is apologizing and saying that we should come back there, which seems bad. I got a thousand mini-mes there, and he’s looking rather fucking crazy right now. Like a druggie in a den of his own dead kin. Half the city is still on death-fire.”
Mark’s apathy turned into an inferno of rage, but he did not raise his voice as he said, “Sally. Isoko. We will be helping Addavein. He will be necessary to manhandle the world into a better version of itself. All of you will be necessary, and all of you will do things that you don’t want to do in order to solve the problems of this world. We’ve got a System Reset Quest, handed to us by System Prime of the elven realm, which means 12 empires working together, 1 Betrayer God to overthrow and replace, and then comes a second Reveal. And after that, no more monsters, no more demons, no more kaiju, and a System that works properly, whatever that means.”
The team aligned behind Mark.
Addavein’s vector went absolutely sparkling with curiosity, his eyes shimmering with joy as he glided in the sky beside the Dreadnought. He did not say anything, though.
Sally got fully on-board, saying, “Okay! Yes. We’re going to need him if we’re going to kill Dominant and install you as the Emperor of Xerkona.”
Isoko exclaimed, “Did you seehow ‘Barky’ dove into the prismatic light between the crystal spikes? He wanted that power so bad!”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Barky is gorging himself while his empire burns,” Derek said.
Addavein rapidly oriented into the flow of the conversation, saying, “Dominant —do not call him ‘Barky’ if you want to have a civil discussion with him— has always been power hungry, in a rather literal and also domineering sort of way. The only reason he has an empire at all is to feed his roots, and civilization is better than wild forests at producing mana, so that is what he does. There have been times in Okuana’s long history that Dominant has gone dormant after finding immense sources of power, and I suspect this will be one of them. The largest time of dormancy that I know of was for 11 years following the birth of the Aluatha Empire. I oversaw that… or rather, my fatheroversaw that event…” Addavein looked at Mark. “Another Inheritor, then?”
“Yes,” Mark said, regarding Addavein in an entirely new way. “Addashield was about 350 years old, wasn’t he? I didn’t realize the timeline… And you, or rather, he, knew the Valens? Is Aurora still a part of the line of power of Aluatha? Is that how it all worked?”
Addavein said. “We’ll go over that story when we can sit down together, in the same room.”
Mark told Addavein, “I need orichalcum, too, and Eliot needs necromancy lessons for Resurrection magic, and when you’re shrunken, we’ll get you a room on the ship… Or something. Whatever you want. You’re gonna need to watch the whole documentary Eliot put together, because we got a whole lot of shit to do, now… And thanks for pulling us out of there and whatever else you did.”
Addavein’s vector felt positively cheerful as he said, “The dragon’s share of the rescue —and isn’t that a funny expression right now?— belongs to Walaria and the Aluatha Empire. Your Mage Society Understanding supplied a great deal of shielding back there. Without it, you would have all perished, for sure. I was rather sure you did die back there, but I am immensely glad you did not.”
That would explain why Mark had been putting out fires with ‘hoses’ full of ‘water’ from his dream contract with Walaria… And he did die. But… Best not to get into that right now.
Mark nodded a little. Then Mark said, “So Isoko needs to do something most Union users cannot, by channeling power outside of herself, and then Sally needs to just shrink herself but Isoko takes that away and gives it to you… And this will work because… why? How do you know this will work?”
“I am guessing,” Addavein confidently said. “And I usually guess correctly about these things. Wind Shapers at high levels get very good about directing power outside of themselves, when they can finally grab onto esoteric power, and Isoko already has a method of directing esoteric power in Union. Sally has Size Manipulation, which is one of the prized Skills of the System for it is usable in truly unique ways, and since she already has a size-changing Skill herself, in her new Titan’s Strength… I am rather sure that we can cobble something together that will suit my needs.” He looked at Mark, adding, “I am rather curious why you suddenly need orichalcum, though. And necromancy for your man Eliot? These are peculiar requests.”
Mark simply said, “We’ll get into it later, after you see the documentary.”
Addavein bobbed his head a little, letting it drop.
Mark took it easy for the flight, putting off calling Walaria for at least 10 more minutes.
For now, he enjoyed the rainbow blue sky of Daihoon.
Mark grinned.
- - - -
Lola sat in the seat beside David as he sat at the Dreadnought’s controls.
Everything had happened so suddenly, and now they were here, flying in the skies of Daihoon again, with a dragon escort. With Addavein.
Lola was 100% sure Addavein was simply Addashield, but a little addled. That carefree, power-happy demonic flavoring had always been there in Addashield every time Lola had ever interacted with him at Orange Arcanaeum, and it still was, but being a dragon was really altering the man’s perception of reality. ‘Addavein’ was a delusion of the self, pure and simple. Lola did not like that deception, but she was rather sure that Mark knew the score and that’s all that really mattered for all of that… whatever it was.
And since Addashield had apparently helped Aluatha become an Empire in the same way that Addavein was now poised to help Mark be all he could be… Lola’s opinion of the man-dragon was a weird, tangled thing, but it was mostly positive. For now.
It would be better when Addavein became human-shaped again, for sure.
Lola moved on.
Lola asked David, “Do we have the full transcript of Dominant’s apology?”
David was eyeing Addavein out there, flying beside the ship, ready for something to happen. Lola’s question startled him only a little, but then he oriented, saying, “It’s standard political trash, but it’s on the ship’s computers now.”
Derek spoke up from behind them, at another console. “I got a tablet with it here!” Another Derek popped into being and then walked over with a tablet, saying, “Here.”
“Thank you, Derek,” Lola said, taking the tablet into her hands.
From the Grove of Godking Dominant of Okuana.
Today an event occurred whereupon several people activated an ancient holy site and gained egress into the Verdant Citadel. After an understandable meeting of arms, the guests were sent on their way, due to the meritorious actions of those guests and their donation of 75,000,000 kilos of adamantium and enough prismatic mana to solve the Empire’s energy budget for the foreseeable future. Godking Dominant wishes them well in their journeys and hopes that they will return to Okuana for better days in the future.
Lola wanted to puke at that shit.
She set the disgusting piece of political savvy to the side, saying, “Mark will accept that at face value, on the surface, but we’re never touching Okuana without an army at our back, ever again.”
David huffed a tiny laugh, nodding.
Derek asked, “We’re aiming to kill him, then? Replace him as an emperor?”
Lola said, “We have many options. What we needis for the person who occupies Okuana’s seat of power to vote at White Cauldron for a System Reset. Everything else is secondary.”
Derek said, “He got enough adamantium back there to start some real shit, though. With the demons, I mean.”
Lola nodded a little. “I am of the belief that Mark was correct, and that Dominant only told Executioner Walter those things because he needed Mark under his power in whatever way he could achieve, due to prognostications from the Fates of Xerkona. Those dragonborn have been working as vassals to Okuana for the last several thousand years, and they likely saw a lot of this coming… Which makes me wonder if they’re still alive right now, actually. If I were Dominant, I would see this series of events as treachery most foul.”
“I’ll look into it,” Derek said.
“No real worry, Derek,” Lola added, “It was just an offhanded… no. I was about to say that those are things we should not poke at, for that would be poking at Empire. But no. This, what we’re doing here and in the future, will be a Grand Inquisition. Poke at those Fates, Derek.”
“Aye aye, Inquisitor Lola!” Derek said, grinning wide. Another Derek said, “It’s good to be back! It was so darned cramped back there!”
Lola nodded. “How far have you gotten on the hovercrafts and drones?”
“And a few brightspeed drones, too, so pretty far! Nearly to the equator—” Derek was excited, and then he paused. He said, “Ahh… The documentary hit the main airways and people are talking about it now. Oh… it’s gonna be big. You’re gonna be famous now, Inquisitor Lola!”
Lola wanted to shudder, but she took that information in stride, as she looked down through the viewing dome at Mark, standing on the forecastle, talking to that dragon about whatever.
The near future was going to be so dangerous—
A golden hand touched her shoulder, and she felt warm. Freyala stepped into the room, to stand behind and with Lola, to gaze through the dome, down to Mark on the deck, alongside Lola and David and Derek. David’s emotions blossomed with joy, and Derek even showed a bit of reverence, as was proper. Lola just felt secure. More secure than she should, but the Goddess was on her side, and this journey they were on was going to change the world for the better.
Freyala said to them all, “The road is long and dangerous, my paladins, but we will overcome it all, together.”