Everything was clouds and mist beyond the bulkhead separating the deck from what appeared to be an infinite free fall. A three tiered battleship of sorts, not unlike most that he's seen in the capital harbor, just a bit flatter. None of the depth of keel that one needed to balance a sea faring vessel, and the fact that it was made near entirely of a smooth ivory alloy demarcated it from the typical sailing ship. Little patch jobs here and there, brass cogs and scrap from their old home filling in the blanks of what time had taken from so elegant a craft.
It was large, as well, easily fifty meters from bow to stern, each tier being a floor and independent deck with ceiling 8 or so feet high. A titanic vessel that 'they'd' somehow managed to make work.
An airship that soared with the birds, two vast turbines rotating at its sides to propel the thing through the air. He'd never seen anything like it, but airships themselves had existed for some time, they were just too expensive for human kingdoms to make common use of them. Haran possessed a handful, supposedly, but they never took them out – and Tyr's aversion to heights ensured he'd never made much of an effort to go flying about.
Tyr had stayed in the forests beneath the mountain for a few days, making no real progress and deciding to depart, perhaps experience would help him understand what his true purpose on his world was. Or rather... How he could stop said purpose.
Surprisingly, he was still on his world, that mountain hadn't been a separate space but rather an island deep in the mists that shrouded the western seas. A large island, at that, with all manner of signs that it had once been inhabited. Only a very long time ago. Glistening ruins and once populated temples to nameless gods dotting the forests around the mountain. Now there were only beasts and a wizened old goblin, Gregory who refused all offer to leave. Whatever he actually was, Tyr had never figured that out either – but Gregory was very, very old. That much was apparent, and it was very unlikely the thing was even a goblin to begin with.
Luk's people, the kobolds as they still called themselves had shown up out of nowhere. No more 'kobo', they'd taken the word Tyr had called them and made it their own, wholesale. Having found this repurposed craft of theirs half buried in the disputed valley but still relatively intact. Inferred was the fact that Haran had to have known it was present, but had failed to either identify or fix it, but the... 'Lizard people' had, go figure?
Based on the runes carved into the membranes serving as sails, perhaps wings, it was made by 'elves'. A little different than their standard scrawling text, not as 'magical' as he'd expected given the engineering present, combustion engine and motors, but it worked just fine. And it was very fast, carving through the mist and allowing Tyr to see the vague outlines of lost islands below. Surrounded by the churning sea and all the vast energy signatures beneath the vast expanse of blue – beasts that could not reach him. Wondering if there was anything so powerful flying in the fog, and hoping there wasn't, already surprising enough that the craft could withstand the mana rich weather patterns without much difficulty.
The only question was...
“Where shall we be going?” Luk asked, he was clutching his clawed hands nervously, nictitating membranes in his eyes flicking shut as he watched their so-called 'Red Chief' glare off into the distance. Tyr felt even more of a titan now to the kobold shaman, smelling of ancient things and knowledge one must never know. Any shaman in tune with the song of the earth would be able to hear those whispers, just out of reach. A popping of mouths and words lost in the breeze, a tongue long forgotten, speaking of forbidden wisdom and ageless secrets. To the wyrmlings and their young who were born as kobolds always had been, he was more than a chieftain, but a king.
A god-king, if not a god altogether. Some worshiped and sacrificed to him, offering him honest communion and living in the way he'd 'taught them'. He had shown them a way forward, giving them power and self sufficiency, driving them into an obsessive need to understand the power of fire and machines. And so they had, for years laboring and tinkering at all they'd found beneath the mountain, stripping the city clean and raiding any and all locked repositories of ancient industry. They saw the figure he'd cut in their battle for survival in the flames of forge and furnace, flying from the muzzles of their handheld cannons, and that made them divine to Luk's people. They hadn't seen this god of theirs in many years, coming to his aid without question or request, and it was daunting just to stand there before him now.
The Red Chief.
No...
The Crimson King, they'd call him.
The greatest kobold to ever live, part of the prophecy of their ancestors returning from lands afar to live them up and return them to greatness. A dragon who must have reasons to hide himself in the form of a human, or so the priests that worshiped the Crimson King said.
“It is nice to see you again, Luk. Didn't expect you to come so randomly, but I appreciate your help.” Tyr said softly, barely audible over the whipping wind. The only 'safe' method of travel through the fog, but he expected there was more to it than that. Surely the only horrors waiting beyond that barrier weren't bound to the depths, but looking a gift horse in the mouth was folly. The last thing he wanted to see was a monster right now, the ones he were hunting walked on two legs and stank of rank breath and pigskin. “How fast does this thing go?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“It took us ten days to reach this place from the mainland, Great Father.” Luk replied, his common improving to a marked degree.
Great father. Tyr snorted.
“And I thank you for your kind words.”
Luk was more than willing to adhere to the usage of these new tools of theirs, but mathematics was not for him – still very much a shaman and user of spiritual magics. To his people, Tyr was the flame in the engines and the power that made things work. A god of metal, fire, and inspiration to their engineers. But to Luk, he was the sun – bringer of life and giver of gifts. God of war against the evil things, slayer of nightmares – and the kobold his chosen. The first born, forged to be his instrument of glorious purpose, as they had been in a score of wars fought amidst the dark and damp deep below the earth.
Tyr's eyebrows shot up in surprise, staring off into the emptiness all around him. He had no real standard for that, no visible stars to measure, no astrolabe or compass. But he did have a communications amulet with a map. A crude outline of continents, though enough to make a gander considering it updated his westerly position automatically – a very surprising, and suspicious feature of a device not made for such.
It gave him no indication of the distance, but he should now be some 2000 miles west of the eastern continent. 3200 kilometers roughly, which meant this thing was faster than any mode of physical transportation he'd ever used. Not even a gryphon was that fast, and they were living things with need of rest when mounted. A wyvern might match that speed, but not oversea with the instability of the air, the storms that came and went so viciously to sweep the ocean surface. Their craft immune to it, barriers to wick away the rains and keep them dry without need for a roof. “And you can navigate this thing even in the fog?”
Luk's head bobbed in the affirmative. “We've no real name for them, but our priests are wise to the magics of machines and can see through any storm.”
After their change, they bore more resemblance to a bipedal raptid or a short snouted alligator, much bulkier, taller, and wider in the shoulders. They all had viscous appearances, reptilian eyes of blues and greens and yellows. More colorful, much larger and made fearsome, the average standing over six feet tall and the largest a foot beyond that, some were even taller than Tyr himself.
He liked how they looked, they'd earned their way and had become worthy, evolving, but he missed how cute the tiny lizards had looked in the past. Luk claimed that they still hatched the standard of their species, only growing faster now. Tyr had never interacted with kobold children, and he wondered what they were like.
Though he'd been dragged from his thoughts and made a bit uncomfortable by the fact that the stern figurehead was an enameled pewter bust of himself, face serene and eerily beautiful in an androgynous sort of way. Twin wings at his back carved of ivory like an angel, resting against the bow as the craft cut effortlessly through the air.
They worshiped him, not quite the same as humans with their chapels and masses, but the dedication was genuine.
In that realization Tyr came to another. His aspect to absorb and feed off the beliefs of others, their faiths, or at least what they accepted as true. At first he'd possessed just a bit more vitality than a strong man, and over time his myth as perpetuated first by these 'monsters' had been his impetus for growth. It made him question if any of his practice and cultivation ever had any actual effect. He'd been stuck in place for so long, and experienced a vast leap in ability maybe three times in his life, his points of awakening seeming to expand his gates to allow for more of this immaterial energy to sustain him.
And each time it had, it was after he'd done something notable, something that would earn him the right of his legend passing lips.
Even if that weren't true, and he was absolutely sure it was, he knew it had kept him alive. Agni might have even lied to him about the fact that he hadn't 'fixed' his problem regarding his mana core, warped as it was – Tyr should've passed to it long ago. Granted, with a power as fickle as that, if enough people thought he was dead – he might actually blink away.
And now, he felt much weaker than his peak, gradually becoming more frail, anchored by small lights spread across the world in its deep places. Beings like these kobolds who still held the faith, it was a beautiful thing, but horrifying in its greater significance. To speak his aspect aloud would be handing the chains shackling his neck to anyone who heard them. Even as he stood and conversed with Luk, his 'first shaman', Tyr could feel those lights blinking out of existence – slowly, confirming a thing.
He was dead to many, the candles had been lit across the world once, but now there were so very few of them. The world thought he was dead, and he would make good use of that. It could only aid him, and in revealing that he was no such thing, he'd be made even greater for it. The contraction before a new expansion to dwarf any before.
“Plot a course due north, northeast by ten degrees. I have a stop to make, and then we shall return.”
All he did was speak, and their taloned feet were slammed into the deck to elicit a deep rumble. It was almost funny how they'd come so far in such a short time. Attributing it all to him rather than their own hard work, though he couldn't have said whether or not he was responsible for this. Unfortunately, he'd have to abuse that faith a little bit longer. He wondered what Astal would think when he arrived at the clan hold with an airship and veritable warband of awakened kobolds.
Should I say something dramatic...?
Ultimately, he was anything if not a sucker for the romantic.
“I'm coming home.”