Magma Dragon's Heir

45th of Season of Fire, Year 1196 AL

Newt sat atop Mount Earth, looking at the heavens. Mana’s voice had grown louder as centuries passed. He stood at the cusp of understanding the words, and he was certain that once he became an exalt, everything would fall into place. A goal he was mere minutes away from.

Noon approached, and the pleading and whining and cheering grew louder until the pillar of flame fell, and Newt entered his realm. Like every time before, the realm barrier melted, and Newt’s inner world expanded.

“I guess we first head to your secret realm and see what this whole thing was about,” Newt told Magmin as mana still surged into his realm, “Then, once I’ve properly refined my realm, we gather all the saurian exalts in the world and crush the outer god worshipers.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Magmin said jokingly.

Newt agreed. With enough time to grow powerful and unite the saurians, they could crush the misguided portion of humanity ten times over. The only question was whether he should rush to see Magmin’s realm or take his time and grow first.

“I’d prefer to go now,” Magmin said. “Shimmer can’t resist you at all right now, and I doubt I was much more powerful than her when I was at my peak.”

Newt didn’t disagree; even after feeding a portion of the precious celestial mana to Magmin for six and a half centuries, what remained was enough to paint his realm white with brilliant golden seals. As for using his realm to store anything, while it was possible for Newt to draw objects inside, everything turned to vapor immediately, and all Newt had to show for it was gas or slag left by the most heat-resistant materials he could find.

“I guess we can see what was on your mind when you set all of this in motion.” Newt was about to leave his realm when he looked at Magmin. “Do you want to fly us over?”

“Sure,” the dragon grinned, and they left Newt’s realm together a handful of seconds after the celestial flames had stopped.

Magmin manifested as himself, but only sixty feet long and as thick as an old tree to save mana. While he could exist, he was still only a manifestation made of mana Newt had invested in him.

Newt regarded him and nodded in approval. The mana spent on raising Magmin had been worth it; the dragon had at least a hundred years’ worth of mana if he just maintained his form and flew around.

As for fighting, that depended on how intense the battle would be. He had hours of pure physical combat, but if magic got involved, it went down to minutes or seconds, depending on how wasteful he was.

“What are you waiting for?” Magmin asked. “Hop on.”

Newt smiled and rode his dragon north towards his ancestral home and the original Magmin’s legacy.

“You’re a horrible father, you know that?” Newt grumbled, once more thinking how Magmin had never named Shimmer.

“And you’re not a father at all, so you have no right to judge me.”

That was a low blow.

While a long time had passed, and Newt and Maelstrom could have a child easily, they once more decided to wait. Giving birth to life only for the outer gods to devour it felt irresponsible.

And Newt had experienced his fair share of what he considered irresponsible parenting. Enough to know he wanted no part in it. He would be a father properly or not at all.

“I can tell you’re taking the moral high ground,” Magmin said. “I’m not in your realm, and I can’t see your thoughts, but I still know you’re thinking about how you’re doing the right thing.”

Newt chuckled. “If you didn’t know me, who would? But tell me, how does it feel to fly again? To move around in the big open world?”

“It feels… divine.”

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Since it felt divine, Newt stopped talking and let his friend enjoy the feeling.

A day later, they arrived at the overgrown jungle at the foot of a mostly bare mountain. Instead of flying straight to the mines, Newt went over to the ruins of the castle. He hadn’t visited in centuries, and the claws of time had raked at the ancient structure without mercy.

A family of second realm raptors had made the old clanhold their home. All of them froze the moment Newt and Magmin touched down. Their hearts raced in their chests, and Newt could tell they had fully submitted, even second realm beasts understanding their survival relied on his will and nothing else.

Newt ignored them. He stalked the old hallways until he suddenly laughed, all the raptors twitching.

Once upon a time, these were my heart demons.

He scanned each and every one of them in less time than a non-awakened would need to blink. They were cute. For some, they were terrifying, merciless predators, but for Newt, who enjoyed saurian company as much as human, they were just frail, terrified critters.

His heart ached at the state of his former home, but he had moved on, and what had happened was the consequence of that. His new home was a cozy treehouse he shared with Maelstrom, and it really was a place he felt welcome, not just a flavor of good memories soured by the bad years that followed.

I’m being unfair, he sighed. It wasn’t really that bad.

He stopped the foolish waste of time and went to the mine, descending its tunnels and burning his way through collapsed patches more than once until he reached the faintly pulsating stars.

They too seemed fragile before him. A memory of their overbearing might as they pulsated before him once upon a time superimposed itself with the present in which Newt found the cores not all that impressive.

“Are you scoffing at my cores?”

“Just thinking about something from my past.” Newt tried to hide his embarrassment.

“You are! You’re scoffing at my legacy!”

“Can you even scoff? You’re a snake.”

“I’m not answering that. Just touch the unworthy orbs floating before you, you thankless invader.”

“That’s harsh. This is my world too; I was born here too.” Newt touched the lower core and vanished into Magmin’s realm.

Instead of ever-burning fires atop black rock, Newt found himself in a sloped realm of ash and black sand. Magmin had hardly sculpted his tenth realm, but before Newt could consider anything else, a tired voice echoed throughout the realm.

“I guess you would call this irony, Invader.” The voice was identical to Magmin’s, but the dragon hissed the words in a way Newt had never heard Magmin speak. “After countless ages, my legacy only found you, but since your realm was too low, it aided you to reach the required height.”

The dragon paused. “It shouldn’t have done it that way. Even if my spawn were all incompetent, even if no saurian ever found the core, it shouldn’t have allowed any invaders in, least of all nurtured them to reach your impressive heights.”

The dragon finally revealed itself as it rose up from the black sand. It was wounded and tired, looking the way Magmin did just before his death. Rot had consumed his titanic body, revealing blackened bone in several places.

“You’re not going to pretend you’re Magmin?” Newt asked.

“I am Magmin,” the dragon hissed, then calmed. “But no, doing so would insult both your intelligence and mine. Your figures of speech are fascinating. We have all the same words, but I never would have imagined someone could insult something as abstract as intelligence.”

“I take it you have merged Magmin’s memories with yours?”

“I have. You are a fascinating creature. And while saving the world I’m already dead in isn’t something I care much about, exacting revenge upon those who killed me very much aligns with my nature.”

Newt stared at Magmin. “And how do you plan on having your revenge?”

“Through you. You see, I know what I set my realm to do - to warn one of my descendants of what’s coming, and to help prepare them to fight the invaders and avenge me, but can you tell me what did my realm do instead?”

“It confused me for a non-awakened magmin serpent and let me in?”

Magmin stared at Newt.

“Right, because non-awakened creatures are known for deceiving the senses of exalts. Like confusing a snake with a creature twenty times its mass with arms and legs.” Magmin snorted, flames jetting out his nose. “No. Something or someone interfered. Whatever it was, it should be the one responsible for the anomaly that was your friend Dandelion too. There must have been others you don’t know about, but I’m guessing the cultists dealt with them. That also explains your baptisms.”

Newt frowned, but said nothing. What Magmin was saying sounded a lot like cognitive bias Dandelion had mentioned shortly before his death to explain people fitting facts into a complex story after the events had played out.

Still, he didn’t correct the dragon, who kept talking for a long while. Too long, in fact.

“Wait,” Newt said. “Are you stalling?”

Magmin went silent.

“Why in heaven’s name would you do that?”

Magmin’s eyes flickered, and Newt finally realized what was going on.

“You’re afraid of dying, aren’t you?” He shook his head with a sad smile. “That’s pointless, you know? You’re already dead, you’ve been dead for ages.”

Magmin looked away. “I have a request, if you don’t mind?”