Why is it that humanity, when it finds a new power, immediately subverts it to darkness? The uprising might never have been necessary if our first adapters had been able to understand that the power of the Words should be used for the benefit of all, rather than as a tool for selfish gain.
If we could've united instead of fighting among ourselves, how much sooner would the Advent have been fought back?
In fact, I would go a step further. What if we had not been so fast to assume enmity? What might we have learned?
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Chapter Three
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Valthurian had a few options with regards to his new kobold. He quickly discarded the idea of sending him to initiate communication with the humans - they were greedy and useless as allies. They may become necessary later, but as nothing had come from his one interaction with the human thief despite his best efforts, he didn’t consider them a great option.
He likewise found no value in keeping the kobold to wait in his inner chambers and converse with visitors on his behalf. He had few enough visitors, that would be a waste of potential resources.
He idly considered whether he could utilize the kobold itself as organic material to create something worthwhile, but at present his ability to shape reality extended only to stone and minerals. Even the grass growing on the outside of his mountain was safe from his tampering. He wasn’t sure if such power might become available to him later, or if he would be forever stuck with only mineral manipulation, but either way it didn’t help his current predicament.
That left the question of whether to send the kobold to negotiate with the other dragons, or use him as a scout and learn more about the immediate surrounds of Valthurian’s mountain. He couldn’t decide. Either could be valuable.
How far is the nearest dragon? he wrote out beside the kobold, nudging it with a bump of stone when it didn’t seem to notice the words.
It turned to the text, then shook its head. “This servant does not know this script, great sleeping one.”
Great. So that rendered the question of where to send the creature moot. He had no way of communicating with it.
Well, that wasn’t technically true. He could use pictures carved into the wall.
There was something humiliating about trying to communicate with a kobold by drawing pictures. Valthurian decided then and there that he would not be using pictures. They could be easily misunderstood, for one thing, and they’d be extremely time-consuming.
There had to be another way.
Could he create an artificial voice somehow? He really should have thought of this sooner, but he’d been a bit distracted. He left the kobold kneeling in his central room and moved his focus down far beneath. A moment’s concentration carved a testing chamber from the stone, shifting and compressing the rest of the mountain to make room.
It would not be an easy task, but he was confident he could make it work.
By grinding one stone against another, he could create sound. By shaping that sound through various shaped stones, he could modulate it into a rough approximation of voice.
It took longer than he'd expected. The kobold eventually tried to leave, which Valthurian did not permit, until it spoke.
"This servant will return but needs to eat."
Oh. That was fine, then. He opened the front door and returned his attention to the voice experiment. Unfortunately, bouncing sound around was not as effective as he'd hoped. He needed wind.
Well, that was possible too. He shifted the room into a circle, separated the walls, mounted it to move on tracks, and carved his psuedo-voice into a wall. That allowed him to create a sustained tone, accompanied by the grinding sound of stone on stone, but it was progress. Turning that tone into words took days.
He remained focused on his goal, but kept track of the kobold. It came in and out several times, remaining prostrate in his central room when not off hunting, except when it moved to an outer chamber to sleep. It made no attempts to escape, and Valthurian found himself grudgingly impressed with the creature. Despite having no sign from Valthurian for days on end, it remained devoted to its assigned task. Perhaps it would prove more valuable than he'd dared to hope.
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Each morning when it returned to the central chamber, it said, "Great sleeping one, this servant is ready to obey," and each morning Valthurian continued to work on his experiment far beneath.
At last, he was ready. He recreated his speaking-wheel contraption in a rotating disc form behind the wall of his main chamber, placing a large stone dragon head on the wall in front of it, with a carefully formed funnel to direct his words out into the chamber. It was a bit crude, a bit imprecise, and required his active concentration to reshape the stone constantly in order to create words, but it would do. He could practice and improve his technique after he set his new minion to its task.
He also removed the pedestal he'd created before and flattened out the floor, so that the dragon head with its new voice became the primary focus of the room. He did create a shallow bowl in front of the head for donations of gold, but no longer needed signs or writings.
"Do you know me, kobold?" Valthurian's voice grated out in a somewhat slurred echo, with the grinding of stone an integral part of its tone, but the words were words and that was good enough for today.
"Yes, great sleeping one! This servant is sent to you. What do you desire?"
"My name is Valthurian Goldenscale, not great sleeping one. I am awake and I need to know what has become of the land around my mountain. There are humans, but how close? Are there others nearby? How far are the dragons? Who is Alasarnim Glimmerscale?" He stopped before he could overwhelm the creature. It felt so good to finally give voice to his questions, but he did not need to answer them all right away. "And, most important, where can I get gold?"
"The lands around your mountain are contested land, Great Awakened One, Valthurian Goldenflame. Humans have built their city two days to the northwest, and orkin live in the forest to the south. Both have tried to claim this mountain, but your warnings have driven them away until now."
Warnings? Yes, there had been warnings, hadn't there. Who had put those up, anyway? Well, nevermind. That was less important at the moment. The kobold was still talking.
"The dragons are spread across the land as they ever have been. The Eight still claim their divisions of the world, but Alasarnim Glimmerscale the Regal Jade Mystery has dominion over the land surrounding your mountain. She felt you awaken and saw your words, and sent this servant to you."
"The Eight?" Valthurian demanded.
"Yes, Great Awakened One, Valthurian Goldenflame. The Eight, of which you are the ninth. The dragons who have ruled the world since the calamities."
"There are more than eight dragons," Valthurian growled, "and none of them would submit to another's rule."
"Yes, there are nine."
"No," Valthurian growled, his voice grating as he spun the disk more forcefully. "There are more than nine. There are countless. We are not so few. We cannot be."
"This servant is sorry for his ignorance, Great Awakened One, Valthurian--"
"Just call me Lord Goldenflame," Valthurian interrupted. "You waste time."
"As you say, Lord Goldenflame."
"Who is Alasarnim Glimmerscale?"
"The Regal Jade Mystery rules this part of the world, and seeks peace with you, Lord Goldenflame. She does not wish to fight you for dominance of this area, and hopes that you can be content to live within her realm."
"I do not live within any realm but my own," Valthurian roared.
"As you say, Lord Goldenflame. This servant can convey your words to the Regal Jade Mystery, Alasarnim Glimmerscale."
"Not yet. You'll leave when I give the order and not before."
"As you say, Lord Goldenflame."
Valthurian let the disc slow to a stop as he considered his next move. He dwelt within territory claimed by one of only eight remaining dragons. How long had he been sleeping? How long had it taken his soul to coalesce into a gemstone?
His status popped up as he thought this, and he vaguely noticed that his potential number had increased. If it said his age anywhere in the jumble of foreign words and numbers, he didn't know where.
"How long have there been only eight dragons? This cannot have happened quietly. There are hundreds of us. Thousands, perhaps! Far more than a mere handful."
The kobold shifted slightly, his body tensing just a tiny bit. "Lord Goldenflame, this servant must ask ... were you alive before the calamities?"
"What calamities?"
The kobold did not answer for a very long time. "The Calamities, Lord Goldenflame. They are not things which can be forgotten. It has been a hundred generations and this servant still hears of them."
"What are they?"
"The First Calamity, the Calamity of Words, changed the way ejrana works forever by locking it into the Status System. Then, before we could learn how to use the Status System, the Calamity of Advent occurred, and the world was enslaved by people from beyond the stars. Then ..." the kobold's voice dropped away to nothing.
"THEN?!" Valthurian demanded.
"The final calamity, the Calamity of Distortion. It changed the peoples of the world from their old forms to our new. This servant does not know the differences, but the kobolds of before were entirely disconnected from ejrana, yet now this servant could merely spend five levelup points and unlock it to use forever."
"Ejrana?"
"Yes, Lord Goldenflame. This servant would be very poor at using it without putting a great many further points into its associated stats, but it could be done if you commanded. This servant does not have any levels unused at this time but if you command--"
"But what is Ejrana?"
"It is ... ejrana. People can do things with it.” The kobold waved its arms in what was clearly meant to be a demonstration, which failed to convey anything but flailing arms.
“Give a specific example.”
“Cars run on ejrana,” the kobold said. “And fire swords.”
Valthurian had no idea what a car could be, but he did understand ‘fire’ and ‘sword’, though not how they could be combined. Usually, fire melted swords, or at least made their wielders yelp and drop the overheated weapon. Very satisfying interaction, fire plus sword.
He began to think that understanding the world would be harder than he’d assumed.
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