Chapter 4. Uneasy lies the head. ~DNA.

“Fuck.”

“[Indeed. That poor woman. Are you sure it was wise, gifting that Perk to her and keeping only the Talent for yourself?]”

“Smith… I’ve only recently pieced myself back together again after shattering my mind when I accidentally evolved my Scions into dungeons. This after only a couple days after waking up from an advancement coma that had me insensate for months which I only barely managed to survive starting in the first place. Primarily triggered because I had somehow managed to turn my actual Domain itself into a Scion, nearly detonating my core with a cataclysmic overload.”

I solidify my presence next to him and glare, “Yes, I’m sure it was wise to not graft Truesight onto my being when I’m already under a massive strain just managing seven different dungeon sized streams of Mana, Mako and information. Insight is a perfectly decent Talent, and more than enough for now. So, can we talk about Demons /and this fucking redaction around their abilities\?”

Again, there is that orange flaking in the Mana of the air those last words pass through. Being so attuned to Smith in this moment, I can almost see the impact of a massive hammer that strikes out from his aura when it reaches him, “[There’s not much to talk about. That’s just what happens. There are those like us, and that girl, who for whatever reason have managed to fight back against it. It sounds like the Champions of that Dervish’s Order have that immunity too.]”

Shaking off the residual ashy chalk in the local Mana, he takes flight back to his lair, “[When I noticed the {Taint} in the Tempest’s core, I offered to help because I didn’t think you’d be able to detect it, but you picked up on it /as soon as it spoke\,]” he spits and sputters for a moment. A deafening elsewhere roars from a grand furnace torching and purifying the broken words before they pass into the wind.

“[Can we please stop talking about that? Having the ability to do so, doesn’t mean it isn’t a foulness most unpleasant.]”

I pull back my frustration, because somehow, when the effect happens with my speech the reaction isn’t as severe. After he explained it when it first happened, I double checked with Dreams, making sure they weren’t bearing the burden for me before a popup provided an all too ready answer.

Timeless Perspective: Sanity Perk. Experience life through your {Mobs}.

Kingdom Dungeons provide a partial ward for their Scions.

Though it didn’t have their voice tag on it this time, I remember who it was that wrote that second line. Though while the… residue remains, there is some instinct advising caution on invoking attention carelessly.

And yet, I can freely examine what’s happening to it in my territory, and how while the quick purge from Smith seemed to clean the air, it also created a vacuum that needed filling. But for the words I’ve used, the lingering presence seems to be under assault, but not actually managing to annihilate the Mana in their space. It’s taking far longer, but the {Taint} seems to be failing at its purpose.

Helix and Thing are ecstatic about having a new project to work on, and Dreams seems keen to help out as well. Their apparent youth counterbalanced by the caution and respect they are exercising in holding the “Rust-”

…

-in place.

…

Nothing seems to happen. All remains as it was, and the flakes of Rust continue to float within Thing’s arena. My three ‘troublemaker’ scions carefully watch and take notes on the patterns and the reactions taking place from it just being held in my aura, its density infinitesimally reducing under their scrutiny and experimentation.

None of them dare add to what is present, but it seems that even through mere observation, they are able to tear it apart, little by little.

I leave them to their work and check up on Life and Leo. Each is enjoying themselves, soaking up the sun, pleased by the party’s delve and what the future may hold. I look in on Cutest to see her hard at work, chittering, planning, training, and birthing her Legion. Being the cornerstone of this delves’ Challenges and taking into account their report on the state of the local teams. She’ll be hard at work supplying a shakedown cruise for new parties for a long while.

The Irregular encounters from Dreams are likely to be regarded as elites for the uninitiated, with Leo serving more as a warning or a signpost for far stronger adventures. Though what he’ll get up to in the meantime to parse the boredom I don’t yet know.

It takes an inordinate amount of time before I find myself focused upon Gnat’s embrace. An effortless twist of perspective gives a review of her flight after my release from Bond’s guts up until now. With it there is her triumph, and also her tears that she’s been hiding from me, “Oh, Gnat, my sweet child.”

I pull on the warmth of the tree in which she’s perched, the solidity of the earth packed around those roots, a great swath of air breezing through the leaves and condense all of that into as thick a hug as I can manage, “I’m so sorry for disappearing. I’m here now. I’m here now, my girl.”

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The rest of the world, and all its grand quests or deep secrets can wait.

My child needs me. Because she thinks it’s her fault that I was taken away again. My embrace expands to hold all my children, each dealing with their personal fears and grief in their own ways. I pull them close and {Vow} to “Protect Mine.”

~Aurora Hephaestus.

Every time I think he’ll run out of ways to surprise or just plain frighten me; I’m proven wrong again.

When his {Vow} resounds through the Mana and echoes within our Alliance, there’s an unnervingly familiar chomping of fanged jaws as his glare is directed in Challenge to the world itself. I shiver and spend the next several minutes grooming myself, the jitters from such a draconian threat unleashed so close, almost enough to make me want to take a renewing plunge into my lava once more.

Yet, stranger than that sensation, was the later realization that when I felt those jaws close around me, it wasn’t a warning I was being given. No, I was being included in that protective if trauma inducing, embrace against outside forces. While many a phoenix might find themselves ‘adopted’ by a roving dragon, I may be among the few to have somehow caused one to hatch within my own Lair and yet somehow built a sort of friendship with them, instead of a bitter rivalry.

For in my travels, I learned that dragons are not merely those scaled flying breaths of carnage. Rather they are those that, like me, find the will to make the world bend to us rather than submit to its whims.

Still. For us to be touching upon… them. I had thought, I had hoped, their kind were behind me. I am thankful mostly that none of the local Leylines can really support a true incursion. The isolation and lower potential of this location being one of the reasons I chose it, despite my own desperation to grow in strength. The encounter was just too much. The fast and easy roads to power were too likely to draw attention, better to hide away.

Now though, with “Eight!” dungeons enriching the land, it’s only a matter of time before The War reaches this place too. That DNA is already a player in the game just means the first encounter will be violent.

Preening finally done, I look at the small collection of old feathers and a few more of Thing’s mites that I always manage to ferret out each time I do this. I’d be more upset by their continual resurgences if not for the quality of ingredients they represent. Aside from my own feathers, it’s rare to get legendary materials to work with, or at least it was.

Each new round working my Internal Forge with the new products from their ridiculous Factory further refines my technique, broadens my potential, and deepens my understanding and absolute joy in my path. Never could I have imagined merrily processing the dross out of reflection ponds of various metals, hidden deep within my own workshop. Picking and choosing among a glut of legendary ingredients as I mix art, luxury, and brutal effectiveness while reforging my plumage yet again.

“Hmm, fewer tufts of vanta fur. Substantially less of the heavy metals, flight is too much of a chore to enjoy. Perhaps substituting veins of silver instead of mercury. I think the balance on the nebulouse was right, they just didn’t have the right compliments to properly shine. The tricky part is getting the pure ice woven into the essence of breeze and stitch that both over and under all of the passive heat from the heart of fire…”

Each stage of this project that grown my craft by leaps and bounds. If not for how respectful they’ve been, as well as capable and now adventurous as they’ll likely to become. Offering my service to those tool users would be utter boredom. ‘Can I get a sharper sword? Tougher Armor?’ Uggh, so pedestrian.

With each clash between my Anvil Gizzards, my next creation grows ever closer to reality. This work will never truly end, for a phoenix that grows content with their appearance is one that soon withers and dies.

The next ringing strike brings a flash of her to mind. My concentration stumbles and I almost ruin precious material, but with a shake to clear my head I get back to work. Now in a better state of flow, recalling those images doesn’t interfere with progress. As I continue to guide each clap of metal within me, a new snapshot parades in front of me.

I’ve struggled these last few days. One hardship of being so far away from the typical rich territories of my kind is a loneliness that gnaws at you. When I first realized what Gnat was becoming, my imagination ran wild with thoughts and dreams of blackened or earthen two-tone feathers with mirages of fire acting as camouflage. I built up this great fantasy that could never truly be measured up to.

The disconnect for when she finally hatched and I mistook her for a young rival male, chastising her as I dragged her through the slipstreams. The near crash once I understood her reveal… And since then, my dreams aren’t filled with thoughts of my old slice of home. Where rock and smoke reign supreme and the ladies preen against backgrounds of dull stone. I’ve begun to imagine this place.

Where a riot of colors, far more brilliant than my own, serve as the perfect cover in the chaos that the local woods have become. Where the entire mountain is painted with the same brush and I imagine myself not with sharp contrasts of light and dark, flame and metal, day and night. Instead, I’ve begun to see myself as a great swathe of sameness. A repeating pattern that draws attention in its completeness and solidarity versus the kaleidoscope of the fevered madness barely disguised behind the malaise of countless watchful eyes.

There is a final gong as the pearl within is completed. In a daze, I don’t even bother to take it out and examine its attributes, somehow just knowing, or trusting, or perhaps just beyond worrying about this version. Whichever reason serves as the truth, when I swallow the pearl and the rush of Mako from the last being displaced latches onto the new one and my body is suffused with power, I shriek in exultation as the change overcomes me.

There’s a sweeping explosion of stone melting heat as my rebirth triggers, my prior plumage liquifying and being drawn back into my dermis before erupting out as new feathers calling upon the scheme within.

I keep my head facing forward and my eyes closed, not to protect them from the forge light, but to gather my courage. The trepidation I now feel, having consumed a pearl of unknown quality or design. It feels like a dare or a prank we would play on each other as hatchlings.

Nevertheless, as the cooling breeze washes over me as I draw back the sweltering heat, I stretch out a wing to examine what I’ve done to myself. The once darker hues with burning tips able to be articulated in a variety of captivating patterns have changed. Now a deeper brown of rich earth, bronze, and gold background serves to better encapsulate the distinct silver lines crisscrossing into the same repeating shape as I distort my body in various positions, “Why do I look like a honeycomb?”