Adamant Blood

Mark sat on the starboard railing of the Dreadnought, watching the scene before him, wondering if it was really going to work.

If they could really shrink Addavein to human-sized.

Later, Mark would call Walaria and Aurora and his uncles and everyone else. He would figure out the next steps. He would talk to important people. But for now… he watched Addavein try something, and he also waited for the second hammer to drop. There was no way that the majority of the world was going to allow this sort of thing… But maybe? Maybe they would? If Mark framed it right, if Addavein framed it right, if the Aluatha Empire backed them. Then maybe Addavein could be a real Hero of Humanity, once again… and maybe this time he could be a real hero, instead of a guy doing good deeds to offset his guilt.

… But offsetting guilt with fantastic deeds was… was that valid? Did that work?

The entire world was based on the ideology that offsetting evil was, in fact, ‘good’. A lot of cultures let a lot of people get away with a lot of bad shit as long as they manned the walls and fought the monsters…

But holy hell, Mark was having a tough time with that idea right now.

Tartu sat on the railing a few meters from Mark, also watching. He hadn’t said anything yet, but he was also thinking about a lot.

The ship had ‘landed’ on a half-frozen island that would have been called Newfoundland on Earth, but was simply called D’Newfoundland on Daihoon, because until the Reveal it had been ‘further than anyone had ever gone before’, and deep into wandering dragon/kaiju territory. It was a big island. The ship was tiny compared to it, at 400 meters long versus 200 kilometers long and with actual geographical features. The island still seemed smaller than some of the structures they had seen on Endless Daihoon.

Mark’s scale of things was messed up.

Even Addavein, standing on a freshly-cleared bit of land, didn’t seem that large anymore. He was still a kilometer long from mouth to butt, though, and his tail was even longer than that, to say nothing of his wide wings. But what was a multi-kilometer-long living thing? Nothing much!

Sally stood at 400 meters tall, over there, looking like a child compared to Addavein, but also looking a lot more solid than usual when it came to facing down a kaiju. She said/asked, “You want me to shrink. Size Manipulation. NotTitan’s Strength?”

“Correct,” Addavein said, flexing his wings out. With another flex of power, he set his giant spine-spikes of adamantium to the side, drilling them into the ground so that they could not be easily moved. He did something else to them, too, making them shimmer and then glitter. It did not look like a formation. It looked like some sort of security measure, or at least that’s what Addavein’s vector was telling Mark, even as Addavein continued to explain, “You will be shrinking down, Isoko will be channeling ‘Size’ out of you, and into me, and I will do the rest.”

Isoko hovered in the air to the side of Sally and Addavein, calling out, “Just ‘Size’? Nothing besides that?”

“That will be the cleanest way to do this,” Addavein said. “In time, with instruction, I will be able to show you many different ways to do what I need you to do. I will not be sharing those ways right now, however, because I don’t want to influence your actions unduly, and in ways that are not conducive toward what I want.”

Mark could already see so many ways in which this could go bad for Addavein, even if it went perfectly. Being a person-sized dragon was going to put a massive target on his back, but also… he already had targets on his back his whole life as Addashield, so maybe this was nothing special, actually? Mark wondered if him being smaller wasn’t going to make him any weaker… in the grand scheme of things.

“Do you think his astral body is going to shrink, too?” Mark asked Tartu.

Tartu ignored that question and said, “This is going to be a disaster.”

“I know,” Mark said, while Sally and Isoko talked about what needed to happen with Addavein. “But the fact is that there are only a few things that matter now, Tartu. Filling those Inheritor seats, getting the votes, prepping for and then initiating the Second Reveal, and then making the world a better place. If you want to do something about whatever is making you uncomfortable right now, then I suggest you come up with some ideas about how magic should work, and then get political with those ideas.” Mark strongly said, “Because I’m absolutely sure that when they say ‘the demons decided how magic should work’ what they meant was ‘the System and the demons make magic work how it works’. Which means there is room for change.”

Tartu’s face scrunched like he was swallowing bile as his vector did a weird internal tumble. He wasn’t happy, but he saw a lot of good in what Mark was saying. He asked, “Do you really believe that we’ll be able to change how magic works?”

“Yes,” Mark said, and he left it at that.

Addavein was looking at them, eyes wide, even as he tried to keep a soft tone toward Sally and Isoko and their questions. He hadn’t seen the videos yet. He was too interested in what Mark and Tartu were talking about.

Sally asked, “I could try to shrink you directly?”

“Absolutely not,” Addavein said. “Quite simply, I do not trust you with such a handle on my life. This is the best method, and though I have never done this quite thisway, I have used similar methodology with others in the past and I know how to make this work properly.”

He left ‘theoretically’ out of his words, but Mark heard it anyway.

Everyone was on edge, and getting more on edge by the moment.

Mark called out, “Andria! What kind of Prosperity do you see with this action? And for that matter, how about you, Sally, with your ‘retribution sight’.”

Sally frowned a little, being stubborn. She said nothing. Mark could tell she saw good things from Addavein, though.

Andria was inside the Dreadnought with Eliot, going over the ship’s systems and fielding calls from her own people. She seemed to be in a conversation with someone that made her feel happy to talk to them, at the moment (might be that aunt she talked about once; Aunt Myrtle from Seattle Arcology), but she heard Mark’s voice and she startled. A moment passed, as Andria prepared herself. She had already seen Addavein, of course. She had not yet talked about what she had seen.

Andria spoke on the comms, “He’s rather… uh, Prosperous.”

Mark said, “Then that’s enough votes of confidence for me!”

Sally turned and frowned her giant face directly at Mark.

Mark threw up his arms, wordlessly saying something like ‘yeah?!’.

Sally got the drift, rolling her eyes and then turning back to Addavein, saying, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Addavein’s vector relaxed, like a cold man dipping into a warm bath. He softly said, “The rate of change will depend entirely on the degree of change with you, Sally, though I expect Isoko will be able to strip you of your size already. It will be a balancing act, but not a dangerous one. Just make yourself smaller, Sally, and Isoko will give that ‘Size’ to me. Not a Union of ‘Smaller Size’. Just a Union of Size. Begin when ready.”

Isoko said, “Starting now, as per instructions.”

“Okay,” Sally said, taking a breath, and then letting it out.

The wind picked up and Sally visibly began to shrink, but then a sort of silver darkness gripped the sky, flickering through the air—

Vectors ripped. Purpose strangled itself. The spell stopped and Isoko fluttered away as Sally winced, and Addavein paused.

A quiet moment passed.

Addavein said, “I will go softer. Begin again when ready.”

Soon, Isoko took charge of the wind, and the sky shifted.

Sally softly began to lose height, with Quark tracking the change at a meter per second.

Addavein flexed his wings out, catching the breeze—

Platinum wind glittered on Sally’s skin, pulling away her power like a sand castle losing to a gentle hurricane, and landing that power onto Addavein, whose silver scales began to glitter as well, like a sand castle coming together all on its own. But the sand that landed on Addavein did not make him bigger.

Addavein flexed. Isoko and Sally both flinched.

Everyone seemed to compensate, somehow, and the breeze continued to flow.

Sally stopped shrinking.

Addavein started losing height, which Quark measured at a change of 5 meters per second.

Mark watched, weirded out about the whole thing perhaps even more so than Tartu, because Mark was suddenly realizing that if he was interacting with Addavein all the time, then he would truly have to face the emotions he was ignoring.

Addavein was still Addashield, at least some of the time. He had even told the world that he was Addashield, but also Addavein. He was trying to have the best of all worlds, and that quietly made Mark furious. Why was he furious, now of all times?

Who the fuck knew!

It appeared Mark had never actually gotten over his problems with Addashield at all.

Mark had no idea why all of this was hitting him right now.

He hoped it would go away soon.

Addashield had been a Hero of Humanity.

Addavein wanted to be a Hero of Humanity.

But Mark had been to elf-land and he hadn’t gotten Resurrection magic or his parents back…

But maybe Addavein would know how to make that happen?

The guy probably didn’t know about elven houses, or anything that had really happened out there in Endless Daihoon. He was very big at the moment, so that was a big barrier to communication, but Mark imagined that Addavein, once shrunken, could actually act at the level that Sloane Addashield once acted at, back when he did such things as found the Aluatha Empire, and save the Two Worlds in the Reveal, and… and whatever else he did, aside from his every-decade commitment to his demon Kanda to produce a hidden dragon, to stuff demons into the bodies of young hopefuls, killing them and seeding Daihoon with demonspawn…

Oh gods.

Mark breathed softly, controlling his emotions as much as he could, as he watched silver scales fall away from Addavein, as he watched remnant adamantium clatter onto the ground, onto those scales. Blood flowed from open wounds caused by scales ripping off, and Isoko asked if Addavein wanted to stop but Addavein shook his head, and they kept going…

And it started to go differently, when Addavein reached 250 meters tall.

His bone structure shifted.

His neck shortened. He stood on his back legs, tail swishing outward, arms transforming. More and more scales, smaller ones, spilled away from his body, as he began to shift toward human-looking. Giant fangs fell out to land among the mess. Monsters, like giant fleas or ticks the size of hovercars, spilled out from kaiju flesh, screaming as they tried, and failed, to dive back into Addavein’s flesh, and when that failed, they fell onto the scales below. Addavein was concentrating on whatever he was doing, his face morphing into something more human, but he still slapped his tail on every single fallen parasite, turning them into splattered goo.

Addavein’s wings shifted, musculature changing, silver skin clearing up, horns twisting and falling away, to be replaced with smaller horns. No hair. Addavein shed his horns several times as he shrunk, as he flexed his wings out. His skin sloughed away as bones reorganized.

9 minutes after starting, Addavein was now 50 meters tall, and looking mostly like a human, but also distinctly dragonish. His legs were digitigrade, with clawed feet, his tail swished outward. He did something weird with his wings, turning them into a cloak around his shoulders. His still-clawed forehands became human hands with black nails, just like Mark’s…

And he kinda looked like Mark, now. Or maybe a combination of Mark and… and Sloane.

Platinum wind continued to soak into his body.

Addavein breathed out, “A little longer, now. Slowing down the process.”

Sally began to shrink now, too, as Addavein shrunk and shrunk, and changed.

Soon, Sally was her normal 3 meters tall and then Addavein was 5 meters tall, then 2 meters tall—

The air crackled, platinum wind disrupted.

The spell broke.

Isoko shivered, platinum glitter breaking the sky for a moment, going wild.

Addavein stood among the gore of the parts of himself that were dead, and not really a part of him at all. With a casual step, he floated onto his former horn, settling onto the twisted silver mass, marveling at his body. He even flexed his wings out, and then brought them back around his shoulders, like a cloak, smirking as he adjusted the biology of it all to make his wings be able to change between wings and cloak when needed.

He was 80% distinctly human, with all the right parts, but his skin was soft silver, his fingernails and claw toes were black, and his legs were digitigrade and he had a cat-like tail, but without any fur. No scales, or at least none visible. Hairless. Bald, except for a pair of ridged silver horns that were only a few centimeters large, and backswept. Anyone could explain such a look with ‘he has a weird Body power’ or ‘might be an AI trying out a weird look’. Anyone looking at him would absolutely think he had a thing for dragons, though. Maybe they’d mistake him for a fanboy cosplayer from some show out there that Mark hadn’t seen, but which surely existed.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

With a casual grip, Addavein grabbed some adamantium from a few kilometers away and made himself some clothes to go over his body, and then he put his ‘cloak’ back on, smiling brightly with very human teeth.

Still had a dragon-sized range.

Tartu saw what Mark saw, and said, “Still has a range measured in dragon-lengths.”

“Probably larger, actually,” Mark said, feeling out the vector in the air. “I think he did a trick with putting his physical size into astral size, sort of like how Sally does it with her own size, but a lot more.”

“He’s going to want to be an Inheritor.”

Mark strangled down a burgeoning hatred that was completely unproductive, saying, “There are 10 empires to fill, or 11 if we have to oust Dominant. You probably know the historical names of at least a few of those, but I only know that Xerkona is out there and unoccupied. We have 3 Inheritors out here in the Two Worlds, aside from me. This means we have a whole lot of vacancies to fill. Addavein would be a fine Emperor—”

Some small words touched the air, and Mark barely heard them—

“Ah! Excuse me,” Addavein said, speaking up, Calling out loud enough to be heard now that he wasn’t a kilometer large.

Addavein had been marveling at his body, while Sally and Isoko had gotten nearer to each other to discuss what had happened amongst themselves. But Addavein spoke up when he obviously heard Mark speaking about Inheritor stuff.

Addavein floated into the air, saying, “I do not wish to be an emperor. I have had to say this many, many times over my long life, and I will be repeating it over and over again. No seat of power shall I inhabit. No seat of governance shall I covet.” He floated up to the air 20 meters beyond Mark, and he was still a big guy, but he was ‘human big’; not dragon-sized. He smiled, showing off completely normal teeth, as he added, “But I will gladly help you attain a throne of your own design. If I understand it correctly, we need to fill 12 of them, and then we can reset the system? Aluatha is already filled, of course. The only absent seat I can guess at is Xerkona’s.”

Mark stood as Addavein neared, and perhaps a better version of Mark would have simply agreed and moved on, but Mark was feeling particularly stressed and fucked up right now, and probably because Addavein had just referred to ‘his time as Sloane’ as his own experiences. He was showing his true colors; that he would always be Sloane.

It was like a bomb going off in Mark’s mind.

Mark struggled to keep himself together.

He failed.

Mark spat, “Dropping the facade, yeah? You’re just Sloane, then?”

Addavein went still.

And then Sloane said, “It would be easier if I was no longer the dragon.”

“No longer a dragon, but you kept the range?” Mark snarled, “Maybe you didn’t plan on it. Maybe you did. Maybe this was just a 15 month body-horror show for you, and now you’re back again and stronger than ever. This silver thing you got going on isn’t going to last at all, is it?” With black sarcasm, Mark asked, “You gonna go back to murdering Tutorial goers for your own gain, too? How about orphaning kids again?” He glared as he spat, “Back to being a Hero of Humanity! All I ever wanted! Glad I could help, ArchmageSloane Addashield.”

Sloane stood tall in the air, like a stone weathering a storm. For a moment, he just stared.

Mark was breathing heavily. “You gonna say anything?!”

“… How long have you felt this way?”

“A long while. Just never bothered to care about it until now, until I realized that… that you’ve been planning something like this all the while.”

Sloane frowned a little, and then he brushed his arms, and his silver skin turned tan. He wiped off his bald head, and his black hair returned, as his body became more human by the moment. The tail and the digitigrade legs remained, but the face turned fully human, and now he truly did look like an older version of Mark, but different, and wearing a simple grey cloak.

He looked like a version of Sloane that Mark had never seen before.

Sloane said, “Before I Fell, before Kanda pulled me too far into Contract failure but when I knew all was lost, I visited the Three Fates of Xerkona.”

Mark felt like he had been sucker punched in the soul. It hurt. His breathing stilled for a moment, and then he choked out, “And what did they say?”

“They told me there was no way to change my fate. That I had to burn all contacts, or Kanda would use them against me. They prognosticated that I could come back to humanity after 331 years of being Fallen, and that I would destroy 25% of the known world in that Fallen time. They also spoke of how I could use you to get back to my Old Contract, but that I needed to talk to my demon to figure out how to do that, because I was already in breach of Contract.

“They told me I was foolish to try and prevent anything at all, and that all I could do was mitigate the horror. And so, I did what I needed to do to prevent the worst possible outcome.

“How they guided me did not help me directly, for nothing they told me was helpful.

“It’s always a question with them, though. They tell you things and you go a certain way, trying to prove or disprove them… This right here? This version of myself that you see? This was notplanned, but instead desired.” Sloane got a solid look in his eyes as he gazed upon Mark, saying, “I absolutely took advantage when I saw the opportunity, and I would hope that you would always do the same. But I knew the alternative was horrors, and I was not going to do that.”

“Are you actually Sloane again?” Mark asked.

Mark had no idea how he wantedSloane to answer, only that he needed an answer, whatever that answer might be, and he needed it directly from the dragon’s mouth.

Sloane said, “I feel like I am him, and that he is me. Other times, I feel like myself; a whole different person. Now that I’m smaller again… It would be easier if I was Sloane, but I know I am not.”

“Great. A non-answer—” Mark snorted; hateful and dark. He added, “An answer that leaves you divorced from all of Sloane’s fallout, too.”

Sloane asked, “If you truly believed that I was only ever in this for myself, this whole time, then why help?”

“Fuck you, you know why! Because despite it all, you’re still a force for good!” Mark glared. “And that’s what I expect from you from now on. A paragon of virtue, Sloane… And pick another name.”

Sloane’s vector —which was being hidden for the most part— flickered outside of Sloane’s control, shimmering with quiet joy behind that deep, solid facade of his human face. Sloane said, “I have another name. It is ‘Addavein’.”

“… Yeah… Sure.”

‘Addavein’ smiled, an all-too-human expression, asking, “Do I get a room, now?”

“… Yeah.”

There were a few more words, but Mark barely heard them.

Mark stepped away, across the deck of the Dreadnought, breathing hard and looking at nothing in particular while Tartu felt weird behind him, and Addavein walked across the deck toward the castle where Lola and David stood. The Inquisitors viewed Addavein with caution and not a little bit of disgust in their hearts, and Lola had some things to say to the man, for sure. Addavein went inside the ship, though, and then Isoko and Sally landed and asked quiet questions to Tartu that Tartu was not able to answer.

Mark had a really shitty 10 minutes, standing on the deck, hating everything.

Why was he so angry?

Why did he hurt so much?

Why did he need to forgive Addavein? Why did any of this happen? And then the questions got bigger. Vaster. Why did Mark need to be the one to solve the issues of the Two Worlds? Why did Dominant try to kill them all? Why did Dominant kill his own people? Did Addashield orAddavein do something to him, years ago, to make him become complacent with the whole talzarki-situation, and now that Mark was back and with an Adamantine Immortal Body and 99 in Mind, whatever had been done to Mark was breaking up? What was Doomo going to do when Mark came back? Was it time for more and more assassinations? How were the Fates of Xerkona going to view him? Would they be sending more assassins?

Why did this need to happen to him?

Mark at least knew the answer to the last one.

This shit happened to him because he kept stepping up, every time.

Whydid he keep stepping up every time bad shit happened? He could have abandoned the game entirely. He could have told Sloane ‘fuck you’ 18 months ago, when it came time to help him in the Tutorial. He could have abandoned everything, so, so many times. He could have been a simple Brawny, living in a world where Addashield had Fallen, and 25% of the Two Worlds could have been destroyed…

Oh gods.

Oh, fuck.

This really was the best possible world, wasn’t it?

Why didn’t Mark go harder on the elves when he was there? Why didn’t he demand the secrets of Resurrection Magic? Isoko and Eliot had even told him he needed to do that while he was there.

Ah, fuck.

Timeweaver and Nova Nexus and the Fates of Xerkona… How much did they do? How much were they still doing? Were… Were any of his actions his own? What—

“Hey,” Isoko said, gently touching Mark’s arm.

Mark saw himself in Isoko’s eyes, and he looked like he was breaking.

He felt like he was breaking, too.

Isoko tried to smile, but she started to tear up, saying, “It’s been a rough few weeks, huh?”

Mark managed to stay standing, but it was a near thing. He wanted to crumble, to hide, to stop. But he knew he had to keep going. He looked away, at the sky, saying, “Yeah.”

A moment passed.

In with the Good.

Out with the Bad.

Thick miasma poured out of Mark’s astral body, threading into the world and coloring everything dark, but Isoko was there and a clean breeze flowed through.

Mark rubbed his eyes, centered himself, and asked, in a conversational tone, “What day is it, anyway?”

“Thursday, December 2, 2049.” Isoko added, “About 2 in the afternoon.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Mark said, “Three months? Like 100 days?”

Isoko made a small joke, smirking as she said, “I’m thinking we call it an even hundred for the movie. ‘100 days in the Endless’ sounds nice, yeah?”

Mark smiled a little… And then he winced. “Aurora is probably pissed… unless they killed her while we were gone—” He glanced up to the messages hovering in his vision. Walaria was there, and Aurora was also there. Could be someone spoofing their numbers, but probably not. “I got messages from them, waiting.”

“I think she’s alive,” Isoko said, “Derek is updating himself a lot, everywhere. Ask him for the highlights and he can tell you. My family is all good, by the way. They all can’t wait for me to come home and visit. Just so you know, I’m rather sure they’re going to try and convince me to stay, but I’m here, Mark. I’m here for the long haul.”

Mark grabbed Isoko in a tight hug, saying, “Thank you.”

Isoko hugged him back, turning platinum. She said nothing.

Her vector said a lot.

She was warm.

Mark quietly asked, “How should I handle Addavein?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

Mark snorted. He let go, and said, “I need to go talk with him more.”

Isoko winced. “Maybe you should… not, for a little while.”

“I like that idea, too.”