Raevu and I met on our usual route to the scribe's hall and walked together to our shared destination. Along the way she told me all about how her siblings had started a renovation project to expand their den using picks and chisels to carve the stone into a new shape. I didn't tell her of how having an earth shaper for a father made such renovations sound mundane, but my suggestions regarding the safest methods of excavation were the best I could offer. Eventually our conversation drew to a close as the dungeon door of the hall came into view. Raevu went first, and upon knocking once was permitted entry by the vanishing door. As per the rules, I waited for the door to close before stepping forth to gain passage of my own.
My knuckles almost made contact with the wooden barrier when my senses warned me of something magical coursing through the door. I already knew that the door was enchanted somehow to disappear instead of opening, but this energy was different and much more powerful. I leaned in close to examine what exactly was happening, but the closer I got the more agitated the mana became. I tried to lean back away from it to prevent any further reaction, but the writhing coils of the door’s magic caught me in an instant.
I blinked as the spell lashed out at me, and once I opened my eyes I found myself staring at the face of Elder Faerkurch who was seated in a plush looking chair behind an intricately carved desk. I looked around to get my bearings, and to my surprise I saw that we were atop the central pillar that served as the head scribe’s personal area, which was filled to the brim with scrolls, notes, books and drawings that were indecipherable to me in every way. How did I get up here, wait was I just teleported? My bewilderment must have been the cue the old kobold was waiting for.
“Kayrux, welcome to my observatory. I do apologize for the abrupt usage of spatial magic upon you, however I needed to speak with you privately. Please take a seat and calm your nerves, we have much to discuss.”
I did as I was told and pulled up a stool from one of the many tables he had up here while he turned his back to me for a moment before facing me with a hefty tome in his old claws. The dusty pages were set aside as he knitted his fingers together before him on the desk. A deep, tired sigh rattled in his throat before he spoke.
“During our prior meeting you inquired as to the nature of your disturbing visions and their true nature, as well as an explanation towards my secrecy regarding this truth. Today I will clarify some things, ask questions of my own, and enlighten you to something sinister that has been growing deep within this city. Are you prepared?”
My slate was gripped tightly in my hands along with the fresh piece of chalk I had gotten this morning. I didn’t expect today to go this way, but the excitement and anticipation I was buzzing with now told me that even my subconscious self was itching to hear what this man had to say. I nodded vigorously in reply.
“Very well, we shall begin with your inquiry and the reason I withheld the information you desired. As you know, I had asked my niece Tuleni to refrain from sharing any details with you in an effort to buy myself time to gather more evidence for today. I was not attempting to hide the truth from you, merely to stall until I had a complete theory to present to you. I assume that you remember the intricate cage-like device I had toyed with instead of speaking with you, yes? Well, the truth is that the tome it held is the one here at my side, and the machine was designed to destroy this book if anyone other than the owner were to attempt to access it. Needless to say I am not the owner of this book, so it was with caution that I meticulously disengaged every enchantment holding the apparatus together before taking it for myself.”
I do remember that device, and at the time that he was disarming it I was irritated with how he was ignoring me. Perhaps I was a tad hasty in my assumptions, but I had no idea what he was up to atop this pillar of magical books. Thinking about it now he was practical in his approach, and a well thought out plan was respectable in my opinion. I would apologize now, but he had only just started his explanation.
“After translating the contents of this book, I came to understand that among the ranks of the elders are some individuals that seek to enact a forbidden ritual of some kind, one that was only hinted at rather than explained. From what my agents have gathered and with details I coerced from willing lips, I came to understand that you and your brothers are a necessary component in this ritual. Do not be alarmed by this information yet, there are other pieces to this puzzle that I have yet to divulge, but most importantly is the fact that there are other ingredients for their spell that I know with certainty have not been procured yet. Until their preparations are complete, your family is safe from their direct influence.”
Fantastic, I was the proverbial virgin sacrifice to their occult ritual. I can’t even say that I’m surprised because the idea had crossed my mind before. Why would they keep an eye on us, intentionally try to isolate us, and go out of their way to keep their distance if they weren’t waiting for an opportunity to take us alive at our most vulnerable moment. More than likely those praetorians that follow Chalk Eater like stray dogs would be his tool of choice to capture one of us, though they wouldn’t succeed without losing life or limb now that my brothers had been trained so thoroughly. Wait, why would they place them in advanced training if their aim was to capture them? Something in my gut told me that my assumption was wrong, and perhaps they wanted strong and healthy sacrifices. I shudder at the thought.
“I take it you are hypothesizing as to why they would use you as materials for their goals, but please wait until my explanation is over before you ask your questions. The reason that you four have been selected is due to your mixed blood, which to our kind is not only a rarity but is also an impossibility after the loss of Sixth City Helkas. The texts detail an ancient spell made by the dragons being housed there, but once the city plunged into the sea the spell was broken, and all mix-bloods began to die off until none remained or could be hatched. This is why you are sought after, as the spell will only work with someone like you as the catalyst.”
That much was obvious. Out of the thousands of kobolds in the city, it made sense that the formerly-extinct variant of kobold was the one to be singled out by evil wizards. Ugh, this is starting to sound incredibly cliché.
“This also leads me to why you are experiencing these visions and voices. As there are two different kinds of dragon blood coursing through you, there are two or more powers influencing your bodies and minds to change. I say that there is possibly more due to the mentioning of the Undertaker, the dragon that ruled over Helkas when it was still a throne. The spell that dragon cast was what allowed mix-blood kobolds to exist, and it is almost certain that this dragon had some part in your existence. Though its blood does not flow through you directly, some impart of its will has made its way here to grant you four life.”
So there were two or three dragons attempting to grant us their blessings from beyond the grave, and the contradicting design choices were what kept haunting us to this day. If that was the case, then does that mean my dreams of the fallen city are from the Undertaker? It would make sense for the dead god of a dead city to show me visions of an abandoned version of my home.
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“There is one more facet of this mystery that I have yet to share, and it pertains to something I had hoped I would not live long enough to see. The Kingdoms to the North have finally engaged in a new line of battles that crossed into Old Pteronian territory. Your uncle and a number of fellow agents brought the same report back to the lesser elders, and a secret gathering of the elders took place. Multiple members of the elders were oddly elated at the news, which leads me to believe that they had been anticipating this for some time now. A vote was put forth to determine the course of action our city would take, but kinder hearts won the vote by one for passive armament efforts and minimal militia recruitment. The old teachings will be upheld for now, but I fear that those who sought bloodshed will continue their preparations for war and the completion of their dark spells.”
I couldn’t stop myself from gnawing at my claws. The war had taken a step towards us, and it was by sheer luck that our city hadn’t begun full-scale war preparations. I could already imagine the increased demand for weapons and armor would be eating away at any materials I ordered, so I would have to act fast and secure what I needed before things boiled over. Shit, that also meant that whatever components were missing from the evil ritual would likely be collected at an expedited rate. Faerkurch rapped his knuckles on the desk to draw me back to the conversation before I went off the deep end with worry.
“Now that I have told you this, I would like you to ask whatever questions you have. Nothing is off limits.”
Nothing? You’re going to regret giving me such liberty here old man, because you’re about to be interrogated. I jotted down a single question per answer, and on a separate sheet of parchment wrote notes on his answers.
“How many elders are there taking part in this ritual, and what are their names?”
“I know of only two undeniable culprits: Zhathrael the demon hunter and Quhros the priestess. Those two have long been heretical in their beliefs, but none have challenged them openly due to their strength and numerous loyalists. I believe that there is at least one more member of their ranks, but their identity is a mystery. I could suspect Tapabaka the merchant master or Jevvikoul the slaughterer. Myself and two other elders can be trusted without question: Lothengus the wanderer and Zhannta the metal touched. The eighth elder, Waweich the delver, is a neutral person that only cares about digging deeper into the world.”
Finally I had names to go on the conspiracy board, and a name for that crazy-eyed void colored kobold from the altar. Looking at the numbers, we had a definite three good elders, three bad elders, and two ambiguous players. These odds were much better than the possible seven enemy elders I had first thought possible.
“What is happening to us with the mixed blood?”
“I am uncertain. There have been no kobolds like you for over eight hundred years, and any information I could find was speculation at best. Some documents said that you would become vessels for the dragon’s power, others said you would become a higher form of dragon-kin as the blood grew stronger. It is inconclusive, but the only constant is that physical change is always mentioned. I would mentally prepare yourself for any possible change.”
Random mutations sounded unpleasant to me, though if they were beneficial changes I might be somewhat accepting. A pair of kickass horns or razor sharp claws would be awesome, or even just a niche environmental adaptation like fins or enhanced senses would be cool. Gotta stay on track and get as much intel as I can.
“I want to know why my magic is different from everyone else’s. Why is it that I can only cast spells by imagining runes along the rivers of mana in my body?”
Unexpectedly Faerkurch grew tense and leaned forward with great interest shining in his eyes.
“You must explain further. I need more details before I can make any judgments.”
“Alright, then I guess I can show you as well as explain. I can’t cast spells like my brothers can, but if I learn the shape and function of a rune I am able to conjure it mentally inside of my body along the conduits of mana that flow everywhere through me. I can create wind runes that push or pull wind a specific way, conjure forces of magnetism to detect iron, detect changes in the streams of mana with runes that act as additional eyes called sensors, and filter out specific materials from held objects while removing anything that is not my target. These are just some of the things I can do, but are by far the most powerful.”
He placed a single claw on his lip and tapped it lightly for a few moments as I demonstrated some safe magic spells that wouldn’t cause any property damage.
“Kayrux, could you draw those runes for me? I wish to see them in person.”
An odd request but it was doable. Let’s see, the wind rune was diamond shaped with little wings to the side, the filter rune had that noticeable “X” shape to it, the magnet rune was two arcs pushing into one another, and the sensor was… It was… How the hell do you draw something with three dimensions on a board? Wait a second, since when was the sensor rune not flat like the others? Oh no, I think it’s always been different from the others and I’ve just never noticed all this time because it only ever made sense for me to keep it internal.
The elder noticed my rising distress and tapped his finger on the desk again.
“You seem to have made a startling realization. Share it with me so I may guide you.
This guy really was a teacher through and through. I quickly wrote out my explanation, but the image of the sensor rune was burned into the back of my mind now.
“The rune that allows me to sense mana so precisely and to look into the properties of things that I touch can't be drawn. I had never noticed before, but this rune is not flat but more like an eyeball made of lines and circles. I don’t understand why it looks that way. Is it because it’s the only rune that I made myself?”
“Yes and no. It is something called an organic rune, and it is a miracle that you are able to just create them on your own. They are runes that form within living creatures and allow for unique spells to be cast, ones that other casters cannot replicate without the corresponding magic stone grown around these structures. Every creature has the capacity to grow a mana stone, but they are almost guaranteed to grow within monsters of every kind and rarely grow inside of people. From the way you describe it, your runes are all organic runes, but these sensors have a unique shape that can only be made inside of a living being.”
Does that mean that people who are capable of casting spells innately have a mana stone within them? Oh god, that means that if someone killed a person who had a mana stone, they could use the powers of that person on demand. Worse, they could do what I did and eat the stone to absorb the power into themself. No, I didn’t want to think about that right now, I had to get more answers.
Before I could ask another question, Faerkurch continued his explanation.
“This is just a hypothesis, but I do believe that your runes are unique in that they are forged from your willpower and will act the way you determine they should. Take your wind rune for example. The one you had drawn should have created a small twister at the end of the rune as it was designed to, but when you cast it the air obeyed your desire. This sounds much like an ancient form of magic that was only taught to the knights loyal to the dragons. I would safely assume that one of your blood donors has gifted you this power.”
He’s right about the runes behaving abnormally for me, but could I really just let a dead dragon take credit for this? I mean, it was my will that reshaped the runes, not some mystic dragon magic or anything. It was dumb, but reconfiguring them felt like playing around with a 3D model on a computer, and adjusting their output value was like fine tuning an engine. When I conceptualized it like that it was easy, so maybe I just had the latent skills necessary to practice rune magic the way I needed to.
I suppose it wasn’t a bad idea to just let him assume that I was gifted my magic by the god-dragons, since it would be a lot easier to pass off than my modern day method. I was midway through writing out another question when a chime came from the enormous clock on the wall. Faerkurch was already boarding his floating platform before I could stop him. He spoke absently as he rapidly ascended into the air.
“I am sorry, we must continue this another time. Take my words to heart and remain vigilant Kayrux, there is more going on than either of us can fathom.”
With a snap of his fingers I was transported to my desk beside the now panicking Raevu. Damn it, I still had so many questions. No, it’s fine, this was good information I had gotten. Once my shift was over I would be sharing this with the rest of my family.