The music stops. Slowly all heads turn towards one particular person. Pairs of eyes, complex amalgams and even eyeless gazes all focus on one being, one young woman with hair like ripe hay, eyes like a clear spring and skin dark like a rich, wet soil. Her expression was one of horror as she watched a faint shimmer fade and fall. The eyes turned to look at the speck, looking on just until it faded fully, having reached the grand marble bellow. For a moment no one spoke.

That moment was short lived.

“HOW?!” Screamed a voice like the drums of war, echoing in the now silent festive hall. “HOW COULD YOU DROP IT?!”

The entire room began speaking at once, shaken away from their collective shock. Beings of all shapes and sizes began talking with their nearest fellows. There were accusations, insults, even simple jokes, all of those were aimed directly at the young woman. Meanwhile, the woman was on the verge of tears.

“I-I… It hurt me…” Her voice was barely a whisper, yet everyone heard it.

“Impossible!” One exclaimed.

“It was just a soul! One that barely survived the Great Nothing!” Another shouted.

More and more voice accusations came, until one grander than most silenced them with a single tap of a fork against their gilded cup.

“Inside voices. We might lack walls, but still, it is quite rude to shout.” That alone calmed almost everyone. The one with voice like drums was the only one to still glare at the young woman who caused all this chaos. “Ahem. Rirshka? Dear. Could you please tell us how you ended up dropping a soul that made the trip across the Great Nothing by itself?”

For all its kind tone, the voice made Rirshka tremble and look down. “I.. I don’t…” She stopped, took a deep breath, then thought back to it all.

She had found it before the banquet. A lone, tiny sphere of power engraved with golden words that held so much knowledge it took her minutes to read even a single symbol. She took it, laughing to herself at her great discovery and brought it in to show everyone. Some congratulated her, some cursed under their breath, though it was Rahena, her sister, that was most excited… Right until she felt the soul vibrate, heat up and zap her like a small ball of lightning. It had hurt her. Nothing had hurt her in millenia. Looking down at her fingers, she still had a mark like a burnt fingertip and looking towards her sister she can only see anger.

She managed to collect herself enough to state all of this, and yet she was still met with people not even believing her. Even the one above most seemed a bit unsure about her explanation. That was until someone else spoke for the first time since this whole party started. Someone who just about never talked.

“It was whole.” Heads turned, gasps of surprise were barely hidden. “It was a soul that remained whole despite its trip. It wasn’t protected by one of us, and yet it survived. It was not even dormant, it was awake, aware, and it perceived you..” A gnarled, twisted thing that resembled a finger points towards Rirshka. “..as a threat. It fought back, just as a pure soul does.”

“Souls don’t fight, Harvester.” Scoffed a being of brilliant, golden light.

“False souls like the ones you make, don’t. True souls? Souls born from the True God’s gardens, not cobbled together from a spit of divine essence and mana? Those can fight. Those remember all. Why else do you think we call upon them to be our divine champions? Ah, but you have yet to call one, yes, that is why you do not know how dangerous they are…”

At that the one that silenced them before seemed to realize. It realized that the soul that escaped and fell upon the world is not just one of a champion…

“Rirshka…” It spoke, slowly, a second voice seeming to overlap with the first. “Did you, or did you not turn it into your chosen before you dropped it. Did you, or did you not lock away its knowledge?”

Rirshka, Goddess of Fertility and Harvest, turned pale as the whitest marble as she slowly shook her head. This was it. Not only had she ruined her chance at a free champion to spread her name ever farther, to be her and her sister’s tool to gain even more standing and mold their land in their vision.

She has unleashed something grander than any god of this world can make… And now she will be shattered for her carelessness.

“Well, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” The Harvester, not a god of harvest, but THE Harvester, spoke. “After all, it fell in that barren rock you call a continent.” He laughed and shook the thing that might be mistaken for a hand if one were to not look too closely. “There’s barely any mana to make whatever knowledge it has reality, and the chance that it fell into the flesh of a high enough infant noble is next to nothing, It’ll end up a peasant, waste away with wishes of grandeur and fall right back into your hand, it will just take a century at most! Unless it ends up born as a beast and loses its mind entirely, you’ll have your champion.”

Slowly the atmosphere becomes lighter. Gods joke at the expense of that fallen soul, for it was unlucky enough to slip into the spot in the world with the least ambient mana. For what, indeed, were the chances that it would end up in a situation where it has access to magic when so very few even start on the path in that backwater continent?

Only the one above most seemed unsettled, and it made that known only to Rirshka.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“While The Harvester speaks true and I cannot simply order you, I do still recommend sending an oracle to your faithful to keep an eye out for unusual kids or magical beasts. There’s a reason we wipe away most proper knowledge of the world champions come from.”

Of course the Goddess nodded her head, then kept it low. After all, how could she defy a deity so much grander than herself? How could she defy the red sun that was here before grains even rose from the earth?

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A knock on the door startles the Duke awake. He barely shakes his head and looks down at the book he was reading. A book he found absolutely repulsive, partly because of the content, but partly because of how much he expended in order to be able to read it, only for it to be absolutely worthless.

Such useless details… pink scaled grucarms become fertile every half month and end their pregnancies three days earlier than their brown scaled brethren. Somehow the author managed to figure this out, yet couldn’t even describe what a grucarm even looks like! Pink scales, brown scales, it could be a small lizard, or a distant cousin of the cursed dragons for all this book knows!

He sighs as a second knock echoes through the study.

I should order a door from harder wood, or maybe one padded with soft pillows so people wouldn’t be able to disturb me anymore. No, I know I can’t hide away from the news of the world…

“Come in.” he said, while clearing his throat and putting the book away. Damn thing required a whole group of scribes to work continuously for a month to translate, yet it was so ultimately useless.

“Your grace, Arc…..Duke Arkros Varkrm. I am company captain Reus, ready to report.” A soldier came in, no, a captain, as he said. The mark on his chest said as much. Still, not someone that often brings news. The fact that he reminded the Duke of his demotion did not make him any more endearing.

“Make this quick, I have duties to attend to.” A single spark coming from the tap of his finger against the wooden desk is enough to make the man stutter and speak quickly.

“Y-yes! A traveling merchant came into the city, looking for slaves, specifically eastern slaves from the tribes!” Before he could continue, he was interrupted.

“And why, pray tell, are you bothering me with the shopping list of a passing merchant?! Has my standing fallen so low that you would come to me to report a mundane purchase?!” By this point the sparks became yellow flames that danced over Arkros' hand, from one ring to another, the red crystals shining with power.

“N-no Sir! It is not about the purchase, it is about why the purchase is needed! It’s a merchant from Tranquil River! The Mistress came and demanded a sacrifice so suddenly, and she claimed that their prepared sacrifice wasn't up to par, so they had to give up their eastern slave!”

One could hear the mana shift in the coming silence.

The Mistress of Tranquil Waters. One of those cursed beasts that came in, took a chunk of the empire’s border for herself, rebuffed the attempt of the local lord at pushing her away, and remained there for the past few centuries.

That same cursed beast that brought about the Duke's fall.

The abomination that still holds his family’s treasured sword somewhere in her endless hoard.

“When was the last time she took tribute.” His voice was steeled just enough to not let his full anger seep through, but by the pale face of the captain, it was clear the Duke wasn't holding back as much as he hoped.

“Ah, ten years ago… Sir.” He turns around, looking out of the window at the sprawling town below the castle.

“And she usually does so every 30 to 50 years, yes? What changed?” The man nods, something the Duke see in the faint reflection. He knows he can’t keep the hate from showing in his expression, so he does not turn around.

The man thinks for a moment, then a moment longer, then shakes his head. “I am not certain, Your Grace.”

Finally, Duke Arkros Varkrm, once Archduke of the empire, fails to keep the inferno in. He turns around and flames spread all around. Thankfully his library was made to resist this much heat. The man, however? He barely escaped becoming a corpse.

“THEN FIND OUT! Send the word, I want every possible explanation written down, studied and tested. That monster has remained the same for longer than most nobles have been alive and I want to know what could have possibly changed!”

I want to know if I can finally make that husk of an emperor to move out the army against that pest and eradicate it once and for all.

Of course he does not say the second part out loud, despite every soldier and servant knowing it true.

After all, I won’t be able to reclaim my family’s standing until I have that creature’s head mounted on the highest tower of my home.

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There is nothing left to burn. There is nothing left to scorch.

Once there was a village. Once there were people. Or maybe they weren’t a village, just a group of similarly shaped animals. What was really the difference? What made one more valuable than the other?

Neither was a Dragon after all. Neither was the peak of creation. Neither deserved to be given any consideration. For what good were a million ants when a sole Dragon can build more, destroy faster, travel farther and turn the very world into its plaything?

Anything the other meat things can do, a Dragon does better, so why would they be allowed to claim land that a Dragon could use?

Why would they be allowed to use this crystal when The Outstretched Thunderous Scorching Hand can use it for higher purposes?

His long tail digs deep furrows into the earth as his arms tap around, trying to find it. His three tongues flick into the air, tasting the mana, following the current.

He found it. So he digs. Or rather, he swims through the ground that gives way to his heat. His arms rip open a wound in the stone as he passes through, right until he finds the last bastion of the little… What are these things anyways? Goats? Cave goats? He could go for some mutton…

Instead of scorching these last few alive, he extinguishes his flames. They look startled, but still they channel the large crystal’s power. This one’s alive, an elemental will be born from it a few centuries from now… Oh well. It is not like those uptight things deserve to exist either. They have the absolute power that Dragons have, yet they are so boring they never do anything with it… Ah, where was he? Right, he was hungry.

A man, a woman, a child, a spear, a few more, whatever was left, whatever wasn’t already scorched or destroyed by lightning, all that had remained from his first rampage now found itself in the stomach of the dragon, melting away into mana. For what were these things if not tiny sacks of mana waiting to be consumed?

Now that there weren’t bugs crawling on his prize, he took the living crystal and spread his wings. His heat might melt away stone, but a crystal this big was not even touched by his flames, instead consuming them for power.

He was now flying through the clouds, fire and lightning heralding his approach. As he carried the large, living, earth mana crystal, he wondered…

Maybe it was time to visit The Mistress of Tranquil Waters.