Chapter 40 - Tell the Truth

“I- I certainly don’t want that,” I replied, careful to keep my voice neutral and body still. No need to antagonize it one way or another being too aggressive or too weak. The uninitiated may have interpreted my stillness as a prey response, freezing in the face of certain death, but they would be wrong. My pants were already wet, you see.

Besides, I was standing in front of the barrel of the turret after giving it explicit instructions not to shoot through me. If I moved, this party would kick off early when I was in prime biting range.

“Few do,” it replied and fell back into silence. It’s eyeless stare and motionless body giving me nothing to go on. It didn’t even breathe.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked haltingly.

“A pressing question, but it is not the right one, one you should already have guessed. Your life grows shorter with every tedious superfluous flapping of your mouth.” Its voice, while superficially pleasant, could be felt in my bones and in my head like tiny insects chirping from inside my marrow.

“You haven’t eaten me,” I observed. I felt like the eating should already have begun, but, instead, this thing wanted to have a word. “and I also haven’t run. Uh- Why am I still alive?”

Its expression stayed that cold, neutral mask, but its tone grew hot. “A second tedious question, little ape. I will not bear a third.”

This thing could have eaten me as it snuck up on me. Instead it chose to speak. It claims it could chase me down no problem, but it asks me not to run. I’m not necessarily food… yet.

“What do you want?”

“Ah,” it breathed, its breath noxious like rotten eggs and charred meat. Its slightly open mouth pulled back to reveal more of its teeth. “We’ve finally come to the correct question, little ape, as I knew you would. Even so, I will expect more of you if this conversation is to continue.”

“I’ll do my best.” I didn’t want to ask another question the creature would consider superfluous. Instead, I limited myself to statements. “You just want to talk.”

“No. You frame this interaction as you would a moment between mortals. This is an insult and a grave error. A dragon such as I never wants just one thing from any moment in our lives. Small thinking such as this is what keeps mortals weak and afraid their entire lives.”

It just laid the word ‘dragon’ on me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. This thing looked and smelled like it lived in a sewer, and that wasn’t, at all, how dragons had been described to me.

The multiverse was big, though. It probably had room for weird, gross, fleshy dragons, at least somewhere.

Didn’t Sissa and Samila say they were sires of dragons? I couldn’t imagine a creature like this producing children like them.

I tried to make sure not to show my disbelief on my face. Instead, I frowned and thought things through, since it didn’t seem to mind long gaps in the conversation.

What did I have that this ‘dragon’ could possibly want?

“You want something from me, and it’s not necessarily food,” I said.

“Essentially correct, though you and all that are like you will forever be food for dragons. We take what we want until we cannot. That is the way of things. However, in this instance, what I propose is an exchange of truths. If you sufficiently entertain me, you will live, and, if you ask the right questions, you may more fully understand the danger that shadows you and yours.”

Bones popped and claws dragged along the brickwork as the creature backed away a few feet to give me some breathing room. Then its head tilted slightly to the side as it waited for my response.

Its word choice gave me pause. I felt my brow furrow and my mouth turn downward. For a moment the creature ceased to exist, and I turned the words over in my head, the danger it mentioned.

“You aren’t talking about yourself, are you?” I asked.

“The right question, but we aren’t playing the game yet. You have no reason to trust my words. Come fully into my home, and the exchange can begin.”

It might have been a ploy to get me fully into the thing’s lair. It painted a gruesome picture of what would happen if I ran or fought. Then it gave me an out that happened to bring me into its domain. Carrot and stick. It even baited me with teasing a greater danger lurking out there somewhere to sweeten things.

I didn’t like being kept in the dark, and I didn’t like being trapped. This felt like it was doing both. I tensed, mentally calculating how much force it would take to jump to the side and what kind of moves I would have to make to rebound off the wall and take off down the tunnel.

Then again. What if it’s telling the truth?

Ever since I’d come to Ralqir I’d been hunted. Scourge-touched, or rift spawn as we called them back home, didn’t seem to need a reason to kill and destroy. They simply did. Did I really need a dragon to tell me why?

Curiosity, as it always did, was going to get me killed.

“I will agree to your exchange of truths on one condition. I will be completely safe as long as we are playing the game.”

“Done,” it barked. Then came a sickening chorus of cracks and pops, and the creature was gone and slithering around the cavernous room, too fast to track. It moved so suddenly, so quickly, the vacuum left in its wake made me stumble forward a step.

The red light was back now that the dragon wasn’t filling my entire tunnel.

I inched forward stiffly, putting one foot in front of the other like a man going to the gallows. I had the presence of mind to keep my body between the turret and the creature, so the programming wouldn’t fire. Not yet at least.

The mouth of the cavern grew wider and taller until I finally stepped over the water-filled gap that made up the threshold and into the full light. The smell was worse here, thick and suffocating. My head spun with the intensity of it.

The red crystal flashed again and sparks shot through the room. I held up my hand to shield my eyes.

“Beautiful isn’t it?” the dragon asked.

“Uh- Yes. It’s a lovely shade of red.”

The dragon hissed irritatedly. “No, not the rock. No more sophisticated than a sump in a The’si ice house. Watch, ape,” it said, motioning upward with its head to direct my attention to the crystal.

The silvery wires, hard to pick out in the thick red hues, crawled up the vaulted ceiling in thick bundles, weaving in and out of the mortar and intertwining with one another over and over again to form a woven tapestry thick enough that sightings of the stones were few and far between, except next to the crystal. Very few of the wires ran there, and none touched it.

I strained my eyes to see what the dragon meant. The red light played tricks on my vision, and things seemed to pulse and writhe in my-

Wait. There was movement up there.

One of the wires, more like a creeper vine with all of its multiple barbs and razors that kept it attached to the roof, approached the crystal and reached out to touch-

“It’s- Uh…”

“Yes. The roots. The crusader steel. The roots are drawn to the power in the crystal, thirsty fumbling little things. Watch,” the dragon insisted.

*Flash* *Sparks*

The tentacles recoiled like snakes, like they did when I disturbed them with Shape.

My brow furrowed, and I took another step forward. The crystal, now that I was looking closely, wasn’t complete. Something had broken it on the half facing me, and there was some kind of dark shape lodged inside.

“What is this?” I asked.

The dragon preened under the shower of sparks that played over its skin and only replied once the last spark was out. “No, little ape. This is my home and my game. I go first. Where are you from?”

“Vistia,” I lied before I even had the conscious thought to do so.

“A lie, but that tells me much already. This is not a story you have concocted but one given to you, I think.”

I kept my face neutral, but the dragon had me dead to rights.

“This is why I go first, little ape. To train. For each truth you give me, I shall give you another of the same quality. I know many many truths for I am older than the world you now scurry over.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“And If I entertain you, you’ll let me go?” I asked

Without warning, it surged forward, deathly silent, huge and menacing, only stopping when its mouth took up my entire field of view. “Of course.”

I didn’t even have a chance to have a fear response, it happened so fast. Yet, I was still alive.

“Okay. I will amend my answer. I’m not from Ralqir.”

The dragon slithered backward until it returned to the center of the room and curled up to bathe in the light again. “Vague but technically truth. I will amend my answer to match. You are cautious. Continue to be so, and you will be in danger of boring me. If you give me the stimulation I desire, I will allow you to run.”

I breathed out through clenched teeth. I was vague, so he was vague. Nothing in his answer necessarily guaranteed I would live through this. My ace in the hole was right there if I needed it, though. with several pounds of atomically sharp cobalt to help matters.

Still, if I wanted to get any water from this stone, I’d need to do it right.

“Next question,” it continued. “Where does your power come from?”

“My home,” I replied, pausing and choosing my words carefully before I went on. “I was chosen to wield it, and I am still learning how it works.”

“I detect truth in your words this time, though I am unsure if you realize just how much. Delicious.”

“My turn then,” I said. “What is happening with the wires and the crystal?”

The dragon bathed in the light of another shower of sparks and made a wet, purring sound in its throat before it finally answered. “It is a dance they have been doing for hundreds of years, through no fault of their own. The power inside the roots yearns to corrupt and assimilate, but the light of the maelstrom is elemental. It will not be changed or tainted. The roots don’t understand why they are rebuffed. They can’t. Their mind is ash, the hollow it left behind another sump for a different kind of power. It reaches for the power it craves so desperately and is burned every time.”

So, if the rules the dragon laid out were still in effect, its answer was the truth, but I didn’t or couldn’t realize just how true they were… probably?

“Why are you here?” It asked, taking its turn.

This one was easy, since it was a sore spot for me. “I was sent here against my will.”

“You are dangerously close to boring me, meat. Do so again, and I shall take offense.” The dragon loomed up high on its back end, its multiple arms giving it the appearance of a fleshy centipede as opposed to a dragon. Its mouth opened wide to display its rows of teeth and multiple tongues that slapped against its jowls though no sound could be heard.

I tensed in preparation to dive to the side and let the turret fire, but the attack didn’t come.

I kept talking.

“Then I’ll amend my answer. I was sent here against my will to learn when I was chosen to wield my people’s power. I don’t know why I was chosen. Things haven’t gone as I believe they were supposed to. If I’m being honest, I believe my ‘power’ as you put it isn’t working the way it should.”

That seemed to placate the dragon somewhat. It slowly lowered itself to the ground, arm by arm until it layed there facing me straight on, only a few feet from my body, as if to say: ‘I could end this at any time. Don’t test me.’

I didn’t give it a chance to change its mind. “What are these ‘roots’ as you call them?” I asked.

“A symbiote that ultimately killed its host. It draws power from the collectors, crystals you call them, in preparation for a spell that cannot be cast. Where did your people acquire their symbiotes?”

I blinked and turned my head to the side in confusion. “We… What? We don’t have symbiotes or parasites or whatever.”

“Hmmm. Untruth but through mortal ignorance. I will not hold your answer against you, as you know too little to answer truthfully.”

“I don’t-”

“It is still my question, as you could not answer mine. Will you ever be able to do what it does?” the dragon said, again gesturing up to the silvery wires with its foremost leg.

I shook my head. “I… don’t know a lot about them.”

“It, the dragon corrected. “The other. A singular organism. A singular mind.”

“I don’t know,” I answered with a shrug.

“A lie.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It is an untruth, through self enforced ignorance, a thing for which I have little tolerance.”

“If I were to try- um- using the metal like that, at the scale it does, I would have to expend so much mana I have no idea where I would get it all. Additionally, the way it moves is way beyond what I can do, and I have no idea if I ever will be able to.”

“So, it is possible, but you limit yourself in the scale of your thinking. Continue to do so, and this conversation will end, meat.”

“My turn,” I growled. I was just about done being insulted by a puffed up salamander with delusions of being a dragon. “You said something about danger shadowing me. What did you mean?”

“The things from between. Void given form by breach of natural law, a sin against the very spirit of reality. It is the same danger that one brought to my world,” it said as it reached up to pluck at one of the wires like a guitar string. “It, like you, was willfully ignorant of the damage you do when you visit us. You taint us. Take from us. Bring us low.” The dragon’s tone grew more heated with every word as if giving voice to its truths fanned the glowing embers of its hatred, and fire was imminent.

“I haven’t done anything to you,” I protested.

“Characteristically small thinking, yet again, meat. You are not simply yourself but the avatar of your species, a title inherited when you took up their tainted power. You have done and you will continue to do to us as long as you live. At what point does your power destroy you?”

“I- What?”

“Your symbiote, ape! Your dark passenger!” It boomed as it rose up to its full height, towering over me. “It will, someday, overtake you as it does all it touches, as it did the other. At what point in your growth does this happen? How powerful are your elders?”

Accusations and burning questions. The veneer of civility was quickly peeling back. I was about to be out of time.

“I don’t understand. We live for-”

I fell silent.

Our elders back home did have a soft limit on their power. It was called the Wandering Threshold. At a certain point, almost every elite, high level Exotic tended to take off one day and rarely, if ever, come back. It took centuries and a ridiculous amount of experience to reach that level of power, but once you did, you tended to drift away. People generally attributed this to age and power slowly untethered Exotics from the concerns of mortal beings and made them desirous of greener pastures, much to the relief of some.

But how could a jumped up lizard from another universe know this?

“You do not comprehend because you haven’t asked the right questions of yourself, and you willfully refuse to be better. Weak. Detestable. Useless,” the dragon boomed inside my skull.

This was about as south as this conversation could go. I needed to wrest control back somehow, if only to get more answers.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I shot back. “I can’t give you answers I don’t have.”

It stood still, high above, looking down at me. Sparks played over its flesh, but it no longer reacted to their touch. “Final question, and make it a good answer, human. You become metal as it does. Can you drink from the collectors as it does?”

“No…Maybe.”

“Could you replace it?” The dragon slammed down to the floor, an act I could feel through my feet but not hear. Then it surged forward, its tongues dripping foul saliva on the floor inches from my body. Desperation oozed from its pores, and its voice grew higher and more shrill.

Replace it? Why would I replace this ‘other?’ What did it actually want me to do?

“I care not for your Scourge or your pitiful slave existence. I have been too long below, little ape. I want to see my sun again.”

Something clicked into place. The dragon called the thing in the crystal crusader’s steel. Brightsteel. It’s the term the System used so long ago in its description of the broken blade in my spatial storage. The brightsteel reacted badly to the tendrils when they touched but not to the crystal with all the mana.

The tendrils weren’t just being used by a dominion similar to mine. They were being Shaped. They were literally being Shaped… by an Animator.

Brightsteel reacts badly to our mana.

“Wait-”

I didn’t get a chance to say any more. The dragon was done waiting for answers.

It was so fast. It picked me up with surprisingly warm claws, slimy but warm. I struggled to free myself, to get away as the mouth loomed closer, the tongues writhing like eels.

“Worry not. I will not end your life today. We have much to do, you and I, and I must leave to eat those you came with. You will not need to walk, not anymore.”

It lifted me up into the air, rearing up on its back legs higher and higher while bringing its teeth down on my shins. Teeth sank into my flesh and grated against my bones. I screamed.

*BOOM*

The damage messages scrolled through my log too quickly to keep track of. The initial volley would have been 35 projectiles, but I waved the log away before it became too distracting.

Ancient Wretchwyrm takes 21 damage. (19 base, 2 Knife in the Dark bonus)(Piercing)

Ancient Wretchwyrm is bleeding.

Ancient Wretchwyrm takes 17 damage. (15 base, 2 Knife in the Dark bonus)(Piercing)

Ancient Wretchwyrm is bleeding.

Ancient Wretchwyrm takes 50 damage. (48 base, 2 Knife in the Dark bonus)(Piercing)

Ancient Wretchwyrm is bleeding.

Ancient Wretchwyrm takes 21 damage. (19 base, 2 Knife in the Dark bonus)(Piercing)

Ancient Wretchwyrm is bleeding.

…..

I could feel the impact even through the creature's claws and its mouth. Big as it was, great amounts of energy was just transferred to its soft underbelly all at once.

You are poisoned. [numbing]

I fell to the ground with a thud, dropped. My legs weren’t working. I got my arms underneath me and levered myself upright until I could see.

The dragon writhed on the floor, its tail whipping back and forth, arms twitching and clutching at its skin, ripping at its own innards.

That meant my ace in the hole was performing its secondary attack… or attacks. I’d first gotten the idea from my ammo worms and speculating what they would have to do to get back to me if they’d been lodged in a target, what damage they might do. I’d simply taken the idea to the next level thanks to the barbs and razors the cobalt tendrils liked to use.

Right now, inside the dragon, the needles had deployed their razor spines, sharpened their heads, and grown a multitude of sharp tipped arms. What’s more, the spines would be vibrating and sawing back and forth as the rounds burrowed their way deeper and deeper into their target. It used a lot of energy, but I only needed to use them once before they were out of juice.

It was a hell of a way to die, but I couldn’t afford to take chances.

The dragon flailed as it panicked. It slashed at the air and at itself. It only remembered me after I’d already dragged myself halfway to the tunnel from where I’d come.

The creatures gurgled something unintelligible followed by a deep, echoing “NO!” that rattled my brain against my skull.

Blood poured from the monster’s mouth, as it came on like a freight train, having given up on extracting the rounds from its flesh and probably hoping to bring me down with it. If I had been crawling into the tunnel to escape that might have happened.

Instead, though, I dragged myself forward, feeling the numbing poison working its way up my body now to my thighs and stomach.

As the dragon reached for me, its claws only found air as I slipped my body into the gap between the floor and the tunnel and into the foul water below. Claws scrambled into the gap to find me, but I was already deep inside and sinking deeper, an aluminum diving tank appearing in my hand and Shape opening the aperture for me.