Chapter 2
Wynerva POV
2 weeks later
3 dragons sit outside of the healing array. Piles of mana stones are positioned in place, powering the array.
“This is impossible, with all the restrictions I inscribed into the summoning circle, this should not have been able to happen,” Ishitar complained.
‘Idiot boy, how many times have I told you to never make deals with those damn pixies! Nothing good ever comes of it. Thinking of yourself much smarter than you actually are, I must have been too soft on you raising you.’
Wynerva looks over to Ishitar and hits him over the head with her tail. Ishitar saw the hit coming but knew better than to dodge it.
Lying inside the healing array was a human, not a dragon.
“You know, the strangest part here is not the pixies finding a loophole in your restrictions, no the strangest part is how the souls have combined!” Malos said with an excited expression that was almost exclusively reserved for his ‘projects’.
“2 souls cannot simultaneously exist in a single vessel, that is a fundamental rule in soul magic. Even with creatures like ettins or hydras, while each head has its own consciousness, there is never more than 1 soul. Normally when 2 souls are together in a single vessel, one assimilates the other. In cases where one takes a piece of their soul and forces it into a vessel that is already occupied if your piece of soul is powerful enough, it assimilates the original occupant soul and thus you’ve created a soul puppet. By the same token, if the original occupants’ soul assimilates your soul piece instead, they gain whatever knowledge that piece contained and they become stronger for it. This is how inheritances work. But here is a case where neither soul assimilated the other, staying combined but obviously separate as the vessel grew around it. Even now, after the vessel was fully formed, neither is moving against the other. They are co-existing. This is unprecedented!”
Malos was yelling by the end of his impromptu lesson. His eyes shined like a child who just found his favorite new toy.
Ishitar glared at his clanmate “Shut up Malos! No one cares about how abnormal this damn thing is. You should help me think about how to minimize our losses. We need to stop wasting our mana stones powering this array, extract as much of Velestrya’s blood essence from this thing as we can, give both the essence and the soul to Velestrya so she recovers as quickly as possible, and then discard whatever is left over.”
“NO!” both Malos and Wynerva shouted in unison.
Malos looked over at Wynerva with surprise and then turned back to face Ishitar once more. “No, Ishitar listen,” Malos began “this is a valuable research subject. We need to study this to begin to understand how this happened to further our understanding of soul magic. The first step is letting the subject heal enough to wake up so we can test its cognitive function.”
‘Neither one of these two can think past themselves to see what the sort of opportunity this outcome is. Those damn pixies, there are always so many layers to their schemes. Whatever is the obvious problem with the deal is always a feint. If we allow ourselves to react naturally, we will end up losing more than we realize until it’s too late!’
A crazed look entered Wynerva’s eyes, the same look she gets when she thinks about pixies for a little too long. “No stop.” She said interrupting their argument. Both Malos and Ishitar turn to her, silently noting her crazed expression.
“Have I not taught you anything about pixies? Have you learned nothing from my first-hand accounts and all the records stored in the Dream Pillar?” Her expression becoming more crazed as she continued. “We must not react as they would expect, now that a deal was struck, this has become a battle! And to beat a pixie, we must become a pixie! Doing what seems natural to us is a path that only leads to frustration and insanity!”
Ishitar and Malos shared a look, but neither dared interrupt.
“Any right-minded dragon would destroy this human as quickly as possible and hide the shame of what they did. The pixies know this, so why send a human? Why didn’t they send us something that looked like a dragon, or even a dragon with a less obvious defect? Maybe a cannibalistic dragon? Or a dragon that is already subservient to one of the lesser races, and the moment we send it to Origin, it will immediately find a master and alert them about our escape attempts? And no son, it’s not because the restrictions you placed on your circle were done so well that they could not find any other loophole to exploit,” Wynerva said, sending a look toward Ishitar.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Then why mother?” Ishitar prompted, knowing it was what she wanted.
“Because they want us, by our own volition, to destroy this human. This human must have the potential to be a key that could open up the way for us to get out of here, and here we are ready to destroy it. Or if one of our more soft-hearted brethren did let it live, it would be as a servant of some sort. Letting its status among us build resentment in its heart, either keeping it from reaching its potential or outright refusing to open the way. No. For us to win here, we must treat it as one of our own. Must treat HIM as one of us,” she corrected herself. “From this moment on, HE is a dragon. Do you both understand?”
“Mother..” Ishitar started, “Mother, that sounds crazy. Let’s fly over to your cave, rest awhile and we’ll go over all this again after.” Ishitar braced himself for the hit he knew was coming.
*Thump*
“Boy, do not forget that this mess was made by you. This is your fault. How many times have I warned against the use of pixies? Have you not learned what happens when you don’t listen to your mother? You think that because you’re a little bigger and have your own cave that you suddenly know better? That I’m old so I must be going senile?”
*Thump* *Thump*
“Mother, wait”
*Thump*
“Stop!”
*Thump* *Thump*
“Listen to me! Of course I know you’re not senile, but convincing the rest of the clan to go along with your plan is going to be next to impossible! Malos, tell her!” Ishitar sends a pleading look to Malos.
Only to receive a conflicted look from Malos back. That conflicted look quickly shifts to resolve, and Malos replies “I agree with Wynerva”
Ishitar is momentarily slack-jawed, he gets in Malos’ face and lets his anger erupt.
“MALOS! THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO BE THINKING ABOUT YOUR DAMN RESEARCH!!”
Malos simply turned his head, completely ignoring the outburst.
Ishitar stands straight up, flares out his wing, stretches his neck out as far as it’ll go, and roars as loud and for as long as his vocal cords and lungs will allow.
Wynerva and Malos sit silently, watching Ishitar finish his roar, retract his wings, and sit down.
Ishitar looks at them and asks, “who’s telling Velestrya she adopted a human?”
Malos responds with his dead-fish expression.
‘Boy, you’re the one who still needs a good beating. We’ll see which of us “needs to go home and rest”.’
Wynerva wore a stern expression but inwardly she grinning like a cat playing with its food, “Boy, again, this is your mess. You’re an adult now, remember? You should be able to handle it”
Ishitar sighed, his shoulders slumped, and was feeling the pangs of a budding headache come. One that had nothing to do with the thumps that were given to him moments ago.
Velestrya POV
2 dragons landed in front of her cave entrance. Velestrya stood up groggily, gold coins and gems scattered as she tried to make her way out of her nest. ‘I’m so tired’
Velestrya made it out of her horde-room and continued out toward her cave entrance to greet her guests.
“Mother, Ishitar”, she said in way of greeting, giving each a quick nod.
She noticed Ishitar’s nervousness. Her eyes sharpened, and the fog her mind was under from her recent sleep cleared. “What happened? Is the child alright? Do you need more mana stones?” She quickly fired question after question. Listening to his sister, Ishitar’s nervousness only seemed to grow.
“No, no all is well, we are just here to check up on you little sister.”
Wynerva snorted at her son’s reply.
‘Does this fool think I was born yesterday?’
Velestrya glared at her brother. Her eyes filled with the promise of violence to come if he does not quickly explain himself.
“Little sister-”
“Velestrya! Call me by my name or title as Matriarch and stop trying to engender familial feelings and get straight to the point!”
Ishitar sighed and continued, “Velestrya. There was a problem with the summoning. The pixies must’ve found a loophole in the restrictions I inscribed. They did not bring us a dragon.”
“What did they bring us?” Velestrya asked.
“The problems don’t end there. I was trying to minimize our losses and extract your blood essence out of-”
“WHAT. DID. THEY. BRING. US.” Velestrya enunciated each word.
“They brought us a human.” Ishitar closed his eyes and braced for the explosion he knew was coming.
“A MONKEY? THEY BROUGHT US A MONKEY? THEY TOOK SO MANY OF THE CLANS RESOURCES FOR A MONKEY? I ADOPTED A MONKEY?!?!” Velestrya screamed.
“Well, a human is slightly better than a monk-”
“SHUT UP ISHITAR!! This is all your fault! This was your idea!”
*Thump Thump Thump*
Velestrya attacked her brother, Ishitar continued to brace himself, letting his sister vent her anger on him.
After Velestrya seemed to calm down a bit, Ishitar continued, “So this isn’t the only problem. I want to extract your blood essence from it so you can heal faster, but mother doesn’t want us to kill it. She wants us to treat it like a clanmate.”
Velestrya turned to her mother in shock. “Mother. What is he talking about?”
Wynerva sighed and explained her reasoning to her daughter.
“Mother, Ishitar isn’t completely wrong. It’s going to be difficult to convince the rest of the clan to get on board with this.”
Wynerva sighed, “I know dear, but you understand where I’m coming from with this, right?”
‘Not at all.’
“Yes mother, I do. We’ll need to call a council meeting. I’ll need the council’s help to enforce this. ”
Wynerva nodded along, “yes, dear, I know. I’m just glad I have your support. I’ll call in some favors to prepare for the meeting. After getting everything organized, I’ll come to get you. So rest well dear,” And with that, Wynerva exited the cave and launched herself into the air.
Ishitar walked up and asked, “Do you really believe this human is the key, or has mom finally lost it?”
A scathing glare from Velestrya was the only response he could get.