After a tumultuous night with Darkia, she decided to move to the private wing of the temple.
A huge dome had just been installed and I could have my dragon throne with Darkia and Kate by my side and thus receive my guests or subjects in an appropriate manner.
There was no more protocol but simply the throne room looked more like a home cinema with different sized armchairs to make us feel comfortable.
In the annex, comfortable apartments for the kobolds and Vespalians who came to serve us. For our comfort, we gave them the luxury. One could have said a court of nobles but it was not the society I wanted.
I wanted to see stores, shopping centers, cinemas and even vacation and leisure centers.
I shared the same dream as the humans and... the others followed because every day that passed was a wonder.
Vermithrax and Glacias were now playing with Louis.
They were the aces of the tinkering.
Especially Louise. She had a pair of scissors and cut gold metal streamers to make jewelry, assemble bead necklaces and decorate the dragons.
They loved to be brushed and closed their eyes in ecstasy.
Then Louise would put nail polish of all colors on their talons and they would spend the day like this.
Arnold played knights with the Kobolds and Vermillion. But the Kobolds worshipped Arnold and ignored the pink dragon. He even heard a reflection from afar that made him cry... "Vermillion should have been a female... he's all pink like a pig!!!"
He grabbed Arnold "My color...is that funny too?"
Arnold "What are you talking about! You're not pink, you're amethyst! the color of the Belier stone and its mystical powers!"
Vermillion was overwhelmed and dragged himself to the human's feet.
"Forgive forgive arnold.... I feel bad... And then you are the only friend I have!!! I am miserable!!!"
"Straighten up. You must be proud of what you are!! you are the first dragon born in this world...a primogenitor! Your daddy is a God and you have that in you!!! You have to show that you are not afraid. You are a dragon! And they...they are jealous of you! They will serve you if you show that you are strong and not stupid."
Arnold looked darkly at the Kobolds who had insulted his brother.
But Arnold sensed that his dragon brother was also very sensitive and behind the scales and the dragon there was a sensitive soul and together they understood the trauma of ice.
More than that, their buddies extended to creatures rescued from the ice in the Daimakan and young dragons from other worlds.
All of them had had their horns sawed off and the traumas that went with it.
What was terrible for them was that the horns acted as psychic antennae, to communicate and stay in community. It was like pulling out their tongue or their eyes.
But Kate was the... She had finally mastered the powerful restoration spell, a super healing spell that regenerated deep organs and traumas. This spell was close to resurrection but took a lot of mana. But unfortunately, I was very weakened. I could hardly take my dragon form and my fight against fatigue was a permanent battle, without respite.
As if to forgive each other, the children shared a single room and the dragonets covered the 2 humans and themselves covered by Kate.
Then we had the visit of the dwarf king, as soon as the subway line and the different bases were repaired and restored.
Pixel and her friends came back near Kate, but a cold remained and I had to intervene.
A banquet was held in the new dome/throne room/lounge.
Darkia, Kate and I were lying as dragons on a huge ottoman, very comfortable for us and there was a table upstairs with dishes for us, enlarged and lower dishes for the guests and a table on the side for the youngsters who came and went to eat, and play in the game room next door...
For dragons, it was a very "human" concept, but it was far, far away from the image of a cave and a pile of gold to sleep on.
This concept was brought up by Cranedur and made me laugh.
"Yes... I guess, in the same logic, when I take my human form, I will put my bear skin on the ground, a leather loincloth and a club... and you Kate, you will make a hair braid and I will drag you on the ground in a cave. You Darkia, you will take flints and will light the fire...
Then we'll go hunting for mammoths with spears and arrows..."
Everyone burst out laughing.
But for the dwarves, and the elves, and all the creatures present, they had to move from a medieval era to an era of space conquest.
Young Vespalians and Vermithrax began to scream and shout in the room and then the siren sounded. They were crying. Louise did not know how to console them.
Vermithrax ran up to me crying and showing his paws, interrupting my meeting with the dwarf king.
But I didn't take offense, not using my divinity or greatness to impose myself. And it was widely appreciated.
"What's wrong sweetie?"
"DADDY...my paws!!!I can't seem to grasp the Lego . Dwarves, elves and humans, they can do it all... and and... me... I can't... I have a long neck and I have to twist and I crash on the floor when I use my hands... Boo hoo hoo!"
I felt bad seeing a major physical difference...
I looked at her clawed paws and talons. She could manipulate most things but..not as precisely as human fingers...
I took her head against my chest. And gave her a kiss. "Don't cry... The pieces are too small...it's not you...or your fault... There is a solution for everything."
I asked Maya, the Kobold godmother to teach her the enlargement spell.
And immediately, the crying was replaced by laughter.
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Then, turning to Cranedur, "I think it's time for them to go to school!
Cranedur: "Yes, we used to have an academy and it would be an honor for us to start it up again."
"Yes, with dwarf, human and elf teachers, it would be great."
Cranedur: "Yes, humans teaching their culture and the history of the old world and science, us dwarves teaching technology and industry and the elves, art, magic"
"Yes, that would be great!"
Cranedur: "But I also came here to tell you that we found a dragoness a few hours ago. She appeared out of nowhere and is untransportable because of her horrible injuries. We did what we could to stabilize her but she was in eternal ice which maintained wounds but they are not wounds, but mutilations. she was practically torn in two... Her organs are only held together by a film of skin. And she's in agony."
"Did she tell you her name? Or something?"
Cranedur: "It was incomprehensible and she spoke in grunts and a little English..."
"English??? What do you mean?"
Cranedur: "Iame. iama. "That's all we understood...
Deep down, that name was familiar to me but I couldn't put my finger on it.
We got up and the children stayed together to play and invited their friends while we got ready to leave with the king.
We arrived at the bottom of the mines and a huge door opened into the room where the dragoness lay.
A leather bed took up the center of the dome in which a huge freight elevator brought heavy equipment to the station leading to my base further north.
There was work everywhere, scree evacuations and most of it was sent waltzing into the lava or melted.
The entire area destroyed by Kate's bomb had been leveled and the collapsed mountain was not stable enough to rebuild to the same level.
So the plan was to build an industrial complex using the energy and the still functional base. The runic cannon was dismantled and reinstalled in the Repressor. This construction site was to last for years... at least 4 years... The Doom was also being transformed. Its hastily made construction had many flaws throughout and it was also being dismantled.
We were vulnerable, but Darkia was protecting us for now.
She was now afraid she would have to leave and leave me for another "mission."
We agreed to slaughter the mailman, which made her laugh, especially since there hadn't been one in 3000 years.
But when the light lit up the room, I had a jolt of terror and stood before the king, and my 2 wives.
"TIAMAT!"
I had as only answer, a painful groan.
The creature before me was a mass of bruised flesh.
I had come across it while visiting Enka's trophy room in his crystal palace. I had seen many pieces of Tiamat, frozen and it was the last one.
On one of his remaining horns, there was a black envelope with golden edges... And there was Hans written on it in golden letters and draconic strokes, a bit like runes traced with cuneiform characters, in claws .... Practical with claws rather than fingers.
It was my first black letter.... and I was afraid... but it also meant that I had passed my Djizira and that I was recognized as a worthy representative of Enka, just like Darkia.
It remained to be seen whether Kate would be involved or not...
Darkia took the envelope from Tiamat's horn and I shook with terror...
Darkia: "You want me to read it for you?"
I feared above all that we would be separated.
Darkia opened the letter.
"My dear Hans, I am proud of you and so are you Darkia, and I am sure it is you who is reading the letter for Hans.
I won't bother you now, but you must not give up. Especially not now.
Arnold and Louise have Tyrant's legacy in their hands, but also Vermithrax, Vermillion and Glacias. If Tyrant is dead, his powers are in the hands of your children and Darkia's."
At these words, Darkia dropped the letter and felt her stomach. It was unusually hard... she started to cry...
Then I grabbed her between my arms..
"You have a brood! Enka told us!!! She knows everything!"
Enka began to breathe hard, all surprised and now realizing she had life in her.
Kate: "This is wonderful... The kids are going to have little brothers and sisters.."
Kate clutched Darkia between her paws and I picked up my letter.
"Seriously, Hans, The 'thing' you see before you is just a mass of abject flesh.
It's the tears through the ice that are driving me crazy. Her son keeps begging me to save her and spare her... but don't trust it... it's the "Evil One" an infernal archduchess.
Do what you want with her but keep her quiet! And learn from her! Learn from her! Afterwards I have a capital mission to save the humans but you have to become stronger
Your mother who loves you!
PS. I'm not here... I took some vacations in your world... I have the right to have some fun too!
Oh yes, don't forget to watch all your children, they are like you! they touch everything!"
Kate approached Tiamat and inspected her from head to toe and was about to do a restoration spell.
"STOP! She has been frozen because she is unstoppable... Her resistance to magic will resist your healing and what's left of her crystal will explode and she will fall to dust... The final death... She doesn't even have access to Faerune to regenerate..."
Darkia: "How do you know all this?"
"Enka's been filling my head with Tiamats that are just destroyed clones of them and this one's getting away with it."
Darkia: "Yes, I remember. the Tiamat war..."
"Stop... even I feel the "call" to war and I don't know what is holding me back from devouring her to take her remaining strength but I am "whole" and my soul is not severed and in need of recovering the missing part like vampirism.."
KAte: So what are we going to do with her?
"We're going to transport her in the darkness to the human ship's infirmary, there's probably a biochemistry and nano tech lab... I'll seal the cracks in her crystal with targeted gamma rays first. They must have a cobalt bomb!"
"Cranedur, have your techs make me a laser torch but instead of crystal optics, I need them made of lead! Ten times the normal size.
I also need a proton probe and a neutron cannon!
The king, also a technician, looked overwhelmed.
"What? It's clear though...!"
And without hesitation, he went to ask the humans for help...
Darkia: "Why don't we transport her on the Bucéphalus?"
"Her condition is unstable and she could die at any moment! I want to save her! I know how to grow and recrystallize a damaged crystal. It takes precise dosages with precise instruments. I'm sure there's everything you need but I don't know the instruments and some procedures could happen automatically and cause the irreparable! but I'm sure your friends up there could finish the second phase!"
Darkia: "I see you are still a doctor!"
"No, I'm a mad scientist!"
The next thing I knew, we were in the human shuttle and the lab was intact and I immediately recognized the equipment from my generation and quickly set up my radiation lab.
I needed Kate to relieve the pain and avoid tissue destruction.
So I opened the skin film showing her damaged dragon heart.
Then I took some liquid nanometal. A metal that kept the shape that was given to it under a given radiation and then kept the shape memory.
I filled the bruised cavity to give back the general but hollow shape. And separated the form and the mass of the zone where remained hung the crystal which pulsed weakly.
I saw the corruptions in the fragments... A demon heart... but some areas were clear... Visibly purified areas... This was amazing but also captivating to me.
Another life form, like Enka... To study... a divine body! I took samples of black blood to see how virulent and dangerous this blood with the ability to absorb all life was.
"We're going to replace this rotten blood with nano blood! Then I charged runestones activating the alloy of draconic magic instead of miasmic mana.
And little by little the skin became less dark and a red dragon blood took shape.
While a resin filled with crystallized mana, used for the runic cannon, was poured into the heart-shaped mold. This heart had nothing to do with the "pump" heart but was a heart to direct the mana and slowly the resistances fell as the crystal became clearer and now looked like a huge ruby.
I released the mana channels, like lymphatic vessels carrying blood rich in crystallized mana fragments and her heart began to pulse and the mana to flow...
Of course with this change, the dragoness was no longer a demon nor an archdemon but a hydra. It was now up to her to do the rest, to recover her divinity...
But her care was far from over.
Her wounds were caused by a God of light, a golden lion, a Primordial God. He had many names. Enka taught me several: Ethan, Midas, Aslan, but it was a Behemoth God. A creature that looked like a Lion in every way but had feathered wings and horns and a tail that ended in slicers. Worse and far more powerful than a dragon. It appeared only as a cute cat or a fierce golden lion that could reach 15 meters in height.
His divine breath transmutes flesh into gold and into nothingness for the infernal creatures...
I wanted to cry when I saw the terrible state.
"Kate, now try her left eye.
The white dragoness put her paw on the feverish skull of the red dragoness at the level of the exploded eyebrow.
"Her eye is not a vital area. Focus on the brow bone."
Using healing spells with a blessing part could have devastating effects on a demon... but I had rebuilt his heart.
Slowly, light filled the hole and flesh and bone began to grow again. And an archway reappeared, but Kate was exhausted.
"You must not put yourself in danger!"
The moaning stopped and Tiamat fell into a restful sleep for the first time in ages.