"I'll go down and check up on her," Dean said, starting toward the tunnel.
"Wait," Bath said, pivoting back around. "Someone needs to stay here to greet the vanguard." Bath gave him a whimsical look. "You."
"You're going to go searching for Virigard?"
Bath snorted, giving Dean a lopsided smile. "Was that unclear?" He walked forward, side-stepping around Dean and disappearing into the hole.
I'll need to be careful, Bath thought as he reformed his body at the end of his range. Thaddeus, his current true body (in that it encapsulated his Center), was at the head of the vanguard, roughly one mile away from the hole's surface. Because the radius of his range was 3.8 miles, if Thaddeus rested directly atop the hole, he'd be able to send this projection a maximum of 7.6 miles downward.
He simultaneously touched down as Thaddeus, congregating with the rest of the verdora, and dove downward as Bath, finally reaching the 7.6-mile mark. And yet...
"Virigard," Bath called out, his voice ricocheting down the shadowy passage. He used echolocation to create a vague image of the tunnel in his mind. At this depth, he was finally able to perceive the hole's nadir another mile or so down.
"Dragon?" Virigard said, her voice soft and ghost-like over the distance.
"Did you find suitable substrate for the city-seed?" Bath asked.
"Even down here, the soil is really salty," Virigard replied with a huff.
"Hmm." Bath figured he could just do a repeat of Ash Glass on Gray World, fabricating a city through his own power rather than the automated mechanism of the city-seed. "Can you climb out?"
"I'll be okay," Virigard said."
Silence. Then: "I protect what is mine, Virigard."
"O-okay."
Bath felt...foolish. Why did I tell her that? he wondered. I just awkwardly stated the obvious: of course the Dragon protects his own creations. Besides, why should I care about the feelings of one quasi-sapient? If Virigard really was afraid of him as Dean said, it was only because she'd truly bore witness to his overbearing power on Illudis. Comforting words wouldn't erase her fear.
"That includes you," he clarified, filling the silence. Why do I feel so unsettled, as though I've done something abhorrent? As though I need her to tell me she isn't scared? Bath felt a sick churning in his Center as unfamiliar emotions surfaced.
Silence filled the tunnel for a moment. "I know!" she cheered with renewed vigor, as though conscious of his need for absolution. "You're my Creator."
With that, Bath dispelled his avatar.
---
Dean had to admit: Bath could really put on a display when he wanted to.
Currently, the Dragon was hovering over their camp, his wings pumping rhythmically against the sky. Dean wasn't even sure if Bath was genuinely airborne because he was flying or, alternatively, if his enormous dragon form was an illusion. There is definitely a limit regarding how large flying animals can be, he thought, and it's definitely smaller than Bath's full-size, three-mile-long Dragon form.
Regardless, Bath's scintillating rainbow scales and feathers reflected the light streaming through the near-cloudless atmosphere, casting kaleidoscope shadows onto the ground. And as the Dragon flew, the new city came to life.
Bath unquestionably has control over salt: it's one of the primary ions inside animal bodies. Even knowing that this was the case, watching Bath fabricate an entire city out of salt crystals struck Dean as an abuse of World Devourer mechanics. Bath engaging in civil engineering and architecture was akin to an Olympic athlete taking part in a competition for five-year-olds.
Dean watched, enraptured like everyone else, as Bath's draconic self blew a stream of fire over the rapidly materializing city, bathing its skyscrapers in a pale orange flame. He grew the city up from the ground, directing the environment's naturally-crystalline terrain into the standard Basalith-model. Every minute or so, he would bellow a gout of flame, firing the surface of the salt buildings into a shiny, hard glaze. Repeating this firing process gave the entire city a beauty distinct from the appearance of Gray Land's similarly-synthetic Ash Glass city-seed. Where Ash Glass looked as though made of web-like spindle fibers, this new city almost looked as though made of layered ice cubes.
Eventually, after around two hours of careful work, the city was complete, and the Dragon's massive form dissipated like a desert mirage. Now that the Dragon no longer obscured the city with its wings and flame, Dean could truly appreciate the absurdity of the present situation. This is literally a city made out of salt, he thought, shaking his head. Table salt, if taste is anything to go by.
Even as he marveled at the city's...unique construction, Dean felt a sense of uneasiness in his gut. If Bath weren't here, we would have been completely unable to establish a city-seed on this planet. Technically, this wasn't a serious problem--he could have just simply led the vanguard onto the next planet, Dusk's Halo. After making the circuit back to Earth, they could do things the old-fashioned way, building up a man-made metropolis.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
But what if, in the future, a group of sapients goes exploring far-off strings of gates? What if they run into a strand of planets with utterly infertile land? The vanguard relied on Bath's city-seeds to do pretty much everything, from collecting solar power to extracting and purifying water from the ground and air. If a group of COTD explorers couldn't plant a city-seed and found themselves stranded, they might very well thirst to death. This brought Dean's thoughts in another direction.
Even now, with Bath's assistance, this planet was still unable to provide the basic functionalities of a living city-seed. Even though this was also the case with Ash Glass--COTD transported amenities over from Lime World--Dean had never viewed it as a liability until now. He'd always assumed that supplies could be brought in and delivered, infrastructure developed, and eventually, inhospitable planets terraformed.
But what if it never got to that stage? Dean's mouth twitched downward. I'll talk to Bath about a boon to reduce consumption of food and water. Also, we need to further study existing planetary relay systems... The verdora system of gate-gate communication struck him as somewhat clunky: moving a rod-like implement horizontally to simulate the zeros and ones of binary (or Morse code) was less than ideal. What they really needed was--
"Dean," Virigard said, pulling on his tabard with a tiny, clawed hand. "Let's lead everyone in. They're waiting."
Dean's head whipped around. Shit, he thought. The entire vanguard really was waiting for him to give the go-ahead.
"The Dragon has personally fashioned us a city," Dean announced. "It will have all the same limitations as Ash Glass, so be stingy with water and food."
Part of Dean wished that Bath really could just spontaneously engender permanent matter. That alone would solve their rations problem. But unless the soil already contains water, or the elements necessary to create food, he can't permanently make anything. He was only able to make the city by manipulating the already-present salt.
He didn't need to say anything else: his disappearance into the city was signal enough for the vanguard to enter.
---
Eyrin decided that this time, he would tag along with his protege rather than spend time with the kursi. After the incident with the Arc and the bug-bots on Drift Jag, not to mention the gurgle-slaying adventure on Equinox, he'd discerned that his protege was an absolute magnet for thrilling situations.
There is much I do not know about him, Eyrin thought as he lounged about in his temporary quarters. His origins are a mystery. He claims that he comes from the Wilderness near Illudis? Eyrin shook his head. Unlikely. Moreover, despite his uncertain background, he captured the loyalty of the other kursi. Finally, he has an uncanny ability to get into preposterous situations.
When the human hour turned (all in the vanguard adopted the human UST clock), Eyrin left his room and wound down the stairs to the courtyard. As all the verdora lived in one apartment building, many others were also traveling downward to meet outside.
This...is why I hate being a prince, he thought grudgingly. Others halt their steps just to let me pass, as though the stairway isn't big enough for two. It was senseless, impractical, and utterly typical of Juserin's vision for verdoran society.
"I love how the verdora make way for me to come through," Clarissa said. "I can barely fit in this stairwell."
Eyrin blinked once, then shook his head slightly. Whenever Clarissa entered his living chambers, she usually exited by jumping out of his room's window. It was naturally too small an opening for her to fit, but he could dilate and contract its dragonleaf edges on demand.
However, in the just-fabricated city of Saltflat, the windows weren't made of dragonleaf, but of salt, and Eyrin hadn't the power to modify the room's structure. He realized just how much he took for granted controlling the layout of his typically dragonleaf room.
It's only been a few weeks...and I've already grown so used to the convenience of dragonleaf. Eyrin wasn't sure how to feel about that. This entire "Church" development feels like it arose out of nothing, he thought. Just a few hundred years past, all our texts indicated that the humans were backward and infantile. Then came the Church and Dragon; with them came dragonleaf, boons, and city-seeds. Eyrin sighed, a complex expression on his face as he rounded the spiraling staircase down. How could anything ever be the same again?
As they left the building, the two followed the other verdora to the next-door garden area. Or, at least what was usually a garden area.
"Woah," Clarissa said, coming up to a crystalline bloom of flowers. She sniffed the blooms, then licked a jagged, translucent petal. "This is the garden?"
"Yes," Eyrin said, proceeding forward at a brisk pace until he reached the area of the garden where he saw the empty black of Thaddeus' shielded shell. As he neared the location, he saw the back of his protege's head.
"Thaddeus," he called out.
"Eyrin," Thaddeus replied, turning around. "It's wonderful to see you."
"I've decided to accompany you and the other verdora this evening," he stated, smiling softly beneath his veil. "None of us have yet explored a non-dragonleaf city."
Thaddeus smiled, his veil pressing taut against his maws. "If this garden is anything to judge by, I'm certain we'll encounter various interesting elements." Thaddeus' eyes shifted to the left and right, scanning over the crowd of verdora. "At least interesting enough to satisfy this audience."
Eyrin grinned back. These verdora are a rather...excitable bunch.
They headed out a few minutes later.
---
"Bath," Lisa said, groaning. "How?"
"It wasn't that difficult," he said, shooting her a playful smile. "The verdora are willing to do anything in the name of a good danger high."
She rubbed her forehead. I feel like the more time he spends with the verdora, the more inclined he is to keep and improve upon their danger sensitivity than remove it outright. She remembered his complaints when the vanguard first set out and the horse-riding verdora became completely high off of an adrenaline rush. He'd called it impractical: if the verdora lost control over their faculties, they'd be a nuisance.
"So it really is true," she began. "They're acclimating to the adrenaline highs."
Bath nodded, leaning against the crystalline Spire's equally-crystalline balcony. The wind was dead, leaving his hair and vestments alone. "I'm not surprised," he replied. "I knew such an evolutionary development must have had a genuine functionality. That necessitates a sense of control."
"But..."
"I know you're mildly incredulous that I actually convinced each verdora to freefall off of the Spire's rooftop," Bath said, his hands resting lightly on the guardrail.
"They haven't known you more than a month," she lamented. "They might have actually died from that height, especially if they landed on their heads."
"Oh, they would have definitely died if they fell wrong," Bath admitted.
The verdora are literally junkies, Lisa thought. "What did you actually tell them to do?"