Chapter 18: Aditya's Adventure
Aditya weaved between the peaks of ice-capped mountains, all-the-while dodging bluish clouds orbiting turbulent rotors holding steady in the converging currents. After several close calls with bolts of lightning, narrowly missing her as they arced to the nearest peak, Aditya’s luck ran out. She got zapped with the full force of nature’s fury.
Momentarily squeezing her eyes shut, she craned her neck to inspect the damage. Smoke billowed off the spot where her scales were struck. As it cleared, she inspected the surface and found zero scarring.
“Well, I guess it wouldn’t leave a mark if it felt nice…” she mumbled to herself. Similarly, she’d found the ice clouds didn’t affect her much aside from the nice tingly sensation of the static buildup. Still, she was mostly avoiding them simply because they ruined her visibility. Her elemental affinities were extremely helpful, but crashing at full speed into a rocky mountainside wouldn’t be pleasant. Probably. She honestly wasn’t sure.
Part of Aditya’s reason for requesting to go on a journey so soon after DM summoned her was because she didn’t understand her own abilities. As she innately understood, most dragons have a clear conception of their affinities from the moment they are born. In her case, it was all a muddled mess. She wasn’t sure if the difference was because of how she inherited memories from another dragon, or if, perhaps, she was just unlucky. Or lucky. It was looking more like the latter. She hadn’t even bounded the extent of her abilities yet.
She continued her exploration of the eastern continent. Although her search wasn’t complete, she was pretty sure that most of the planet’s landmass was separated into a western continent, where DM resided, and an eastern continent. From the sky, it seemed like the level of civilization was similar on both sides of the ocean. Nothing particularly stood out to her other than the fact that she’d spied a couple of dungeon entrances thanks to her keen eyesight.
If DM would ever want to expand his dungeon network to this continent, he would likely need to travel here himself. That would be no small task once he leveled up to the next tier and grew in size. At that point, it would take more than one dragon to carry him through the air—something unlikely to occur. Aditya considered recommending DM establish a foothold on the eastern continent sooner rather than later. She’d probably run the idea by Grummanonth first.
Having enjoyed her bath in ice and lightning, she descended down the southern slopes of the peaks toward the nation which best matched the Holy State’s climate. Other than the treacherous mountains to the north and the huge lake at the center of the continent, no other geological features stood out from her stratospheric view at the moment. She decided to check out the lake next.
Turning southeast, she alternated between flapping her wings and gliding as she allowed her altitude to decrease gradually. The thought of dive-bombing from high altitude into the lake like a bird hunting for fish was appealing, but she didn’t want to make too much of a splash during this journey.
She noticed a moderately large city on the eastern shore of the lake and a mid-sized town to the west. Both were clearly populated. Lookouts could possibly spot her despite her approach from the northwest, but the lake was large enough that the distance should provide protection from any particular scrutiny. As she transitioned from being over land to over the lake, she noticed a sudden downdraft. The shift brought her so close to the surface that a wake formed behind her.
After skimming the surface for a while, she reached the approximate center-point of the lake. With a grand flap of her wings, she drained most of her speed and settled down onto the water like a duck. Of course, her body sunk much further into the water than a duck’s would. In fact, even after she was neck deep in water, her body continued to descend.
“What!?” she yelped as even her head disappeared below the surface. She’d never heard of a dragon who couldn’t float in the water freely. Despite her best efforts to overcome this predicament by swimming forcefully, her body continued to sink until her feet eventually contacted the bottom. Thankfully, the impact was minimal due to the water’s viscosity as she fell, but she still had a major concern. Like other animals, dragons breathed air.
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She’d managed to hold her breath without difficulty during the descent; dragons obviously had strong lungs. Still, there was no way she could hold her breath while she plodded along the bottom of a lake toward the nearest shore. Heck, she was at the very center of the lake to begin with, and this was not a small lake. Aditya was not prone to panic, but even she was beginning to feel the pressure.
‘Why am I not running out of breath?’ she thought to herself. She stood motionless, sensing her surroundings. ‘Oh.’
Apparently Aditya was different from other dragons in quite a few ways. First, she couldn’t float. Second, she could breathe underwater. It was a really strange combination, but at least it meant she would survive the day. She could continue the journey and her efforts to better understand her abilities.
In all the commotion as she struggled to swim, she had lost track of what direction she was facing. The only way out of the lake was to hoof it over to the shore, so she just picked a direction randomly and started marching. Given the slow pace of walking against the resistance of the water, it took several hours, not that she was in a particular rush. She could feel she was still in no risk of running out of breath, although she was getting physically exhausted from the exertion itself.
Finally, the water shallowed to the point that the top of her head poked through the lake’s surface. She remained submerged with the rest of her body as she looked around. The shoreline was a beautiful beach with white sand as far as the eye could see in both directions. Aditya hadn’t made note of which portions of the lake had sandy beaches, so she still wasn’t sure where she had emerged. She wouldn’t expect such features at a lake, anyway. Obviously, the residents had done something in the past.
In fact, many of those residents seemed to be present. It was a sunny day, and hundreds of people were enjoying themselves in the surf or up on the beach. Aditya was still deep enough that a random swimmer wasn’t about to bump into her, but it was a matter of time before someone noticed her eyes poking up out of the water. She could still turn around, retreat deeper into the lake, and walk to a less populated area before lifting off. But honestly, she was pretty darn tired after her underwater journey and descending again was kind of a pain in the rump. Also, the beach looked like an incredibly comfortable place to lie down. She felt it pulling her.
Aditya decided to throw caution to the wind. No reason to half-ass revealing herself. What exactly were they going to do to her, anyway? Kill her? She wasn’t a particularly strong creature yet, but dragons had many advantages, and honestly, it’s not like most people would be able to tell how strong a dragon was at a glance anyway.
Aditya sauntered out of the water, weaving between swimmers. She heard screams and calls for everyone to get out of the water. Before anyone could carry out those instructions, she curled up on an unoccupied portion of the beach. Suddenly, the calls were for people nearby to get in the water instead, but the instructions became more and more confusing, muddled, and contradictory as time went on. Eventually, the shouting converged to just getting away from the dragon.
If the locals were going to make such a comfortable artificial bed here, could they really complain if passing beasts just so happened to lie down? She needed to rest. Apparently, slogging through the lake was many times more exhausting than flying.
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Several hours passed before anyone returned to Aditya. A group of eight humans, likely adventurers or something similar, approached cautiously. They stopped when they were within shouting distance, but not any closer. Aditya was fully aware of them despite looking like she was asleep. They mumbled amongst themselves, probably discussing what they should do next.
After a few minutes, Aditya got tired of waiting for them to call out to her or approach so she decided to move things along. In fact, she was feeling refreshed and ready to move on anyway. Rolling onto her back like a playful dog, she twisted her snout over her shoulder to address the humans. “Whaddaya want!?”
“N–Nothing!” the leader shouted back thoughtlessly.
“What nation is this?” Aditya asked, taking advantage of the opportunity to gather some information that can’t be gleaned from the air.
“Th–This is the Federation of Haqs!”
“And that city over there?” She pointed with her claw to the metropolis not far from the beach.
“Saqshel!”
“And that town on the other side of the lake?”
“Shizhokke!”
“And the nation south of this one?”
“The Principality of Zhazri!”
“And the nation north of this one?”
“Uh, the Grand Duchy of Comben and Rauiyvanener! Both of them!”
“And the continent across the ocean to the west?”
“I…” The man trailed off as he turned to his companions for aid. After some back and forth, he called out to Aditya again. “They’re just called the western lands…”
“Hm, I see.” She rolled onto her feet and stood tall. “That was informative, thank you. Do you have any questions for me before I depart?”
“Have we… disturbed you?” His eyes flickered over to the lake.
“No, I don’t live there,” she answered plainly. “I just fell in.”
“You… what?”
“Farewell.” She flapped her wings and rose into the sky, leaving behind the heroes who drove off the evil dragon, or something like that.