Chapter 6: Malekum

New Guinea, present day, somewhere near the tribe of the god Varan.

A few months earlier, Emilie and her team of anthropologists had solved the mystery of the disappearances of autocochntones and adventurous travellers and traffickers in this area of the jungle.

Near the tragic waterfall, a humanoid figure emerged from a crevasse in a rock at the base of the cascade. The crevasse was virtually invisible, hidden by dense, luxuriant vegetation.

From this spot, a little further on, we should hear voices, drums and the activities of a tribe now connected to the world by motorboats.

But today, the jungle was silent. Even the insects weren't moving.

Something had happened.

A nightmarish figure stood with its back to the waterfall, staring down at the river leading to the delta.

A little further on, smoke... lots of smoke... and in the sky, vultures waiting for their moment to feast.

The half-man, half-dragon shaman advanced with his cursed staff, his tribal tattoos giving off a pale glow despite the sunlight.

A military barge was on the river, the pontoon lowered, and 2 military spetsnatz commandos each had one knee on the ground, their heads looking at the ground, not daring to look at the abomination before them.

The landing deck was raised and a tent with tribal cushions was erected inside the landing barge.

Not a word, not a glance, and the barge took off, aided by hover cushions like half a hovercraft.

They went surprisingly quiet and the black barge disappeared into the estuary.

Behind the barge, a village was on fire, and in the middle, the whole tribe was impaled on a pyre - women, children, babies and all the men, old men and hunters alike. Even some Europeans were part of the carnage.

There were no survivors. Fugitives were crushed, and in the bellies of large anacondas.

On the ground, giant paw prints. Dragon paws.

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Meanwhile,

Tiamat was asleep and exhausted from her last conversation.

I set out to explore the scree with a view to getting out of here, but after 2 hours, I saw the turn and apart from a few cracks between huge boulders, air and water were penetrating a little and the other side was burning.

Digging could provoke a catastrophe and cause the rocks protecting us from the lava to slip.

I was trapped and, like a child, in fact, I was a child and my adult tenacity was gone.

I started to cry. I was me, but not me anymore.

I was like a child who had just woken up from a long nightmare in which he was an adult.

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Then, after a few minutes of intense breathing, I came to my senses and went hunting for wires to make some kind of antenna.

My wings were too small to fly.

I remembered my remaining sacred powers

Sacred Barrier

Summoning swords

Bomb chains

Endurance and supernatural strength

Regeneration

Healing and caring for others

Major restoration (small resurrection)

Sword mastery

small teleportation (escape)

True bible and banishment of evil

Sacred shield

Blessing of wine (generation of mass wine at will)

Sacred feast (grant a feast worthy of the Last Scene)

Mercy (send to heaven instead of hell, effective against monsters of evil alignment)

And a few priestly spells (blessing, various purifications)

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Angelic aura

Sacred teaching (can baptize the 4 main earth religions)

Divine architect: knowledge of the architecture of cathedrals, Buddhist temples and great mosques)

Remembering my original mission, I wondered what the hell I was doing here with Tiamat.

I should be hating her, punishing her and, at best, throwing Mercy at her to end this epic once and for all.

But my curiosity and my heart urged me to find out more, to find out what things she'd done, because she'd obviously wreaked havoc between the time she left Arcadia and where we were.

What reassured me was that Savannah was here, Excavator, Diskor and my man Blackthorne. Something told me he was involved in something with tiamat. The two of them were always at it together.

Tiamat thought, Blackthone obeyed and he also served as a spectator to the fallen goddess's endless monologues.

After hours of tribulations, pulling wires, stripping and knotting without soldering (crushing the knots between my teeth), I managed to connect the wire to the backup computer to get a poor quality image, but I could see the news and the presenter.

We were on Earth in 2025...

Instinctively, I turned my head towards Mom's body...

What have you done now!

I should curse her, be angry with her but...I couldn't spit on her. She was my biological mother this time and I sighed.

Knowing what time it was, but especially where we were, gave me the creeps.

I had no powers left, not even basic dragon powers.

Then I became aware of the dragon hunters and that, a la TV, I had a potential arch-enemy ahead of us.

But also, maybe my parents and family were still alive in this world from when I was still human? Maybe there was another me?

Could Savannah still have her mommy? Had the plane crashed? And the padre? Would he be alive?

No... it was commendable but even possible, it would be suicide.

Emilie would crush me like one of Tiamat's offspring... same for the others. The tanks would eventually tear Discor and Excavator apart...

Padre would decapitate me like a monster, and twice knowing who my mother is... Especially since he wouldn't see a human soul with his true vision...

I bet a blessed silver cross would burn me... It's true I went on a rampage in the name of a humanity that was no more.

Here, I come from nothing. I'm just an offspring of Tiamat and..technically, I'm Tiamat... the real one died in hell..all that's left is a dying wreck...

Life started out hardcore for me... and I wasn't even aware of the cogs turning around me.

Then everything went black, silent, with the rasp of Mother's breathing, drops of water falling on one side and on the other, drops of water turning into a hiss of steam on contact with the burning rock.

I was suddenly afraid of the dark.

I was horribly afraid and found myself like a helpless chick facing a world ready to devour me.

I was also afraid for the eggs.

The pile of preserves wasn't big and if we didn't find a way out of here, we'd starve to death.

Then I remembered the Festin spell...

"At least we'd die buried... yes!!! excavator...."

Then I moaned and cried again against my mom.

"It will take months for her to turn into a little caterpillar drill, must she silk the same and want to help us!!!.

Besides, I didn't know which way to dig... What if the lava entered the tunnel?

I looked up at the ceiling. Very high.

That's where the water comes from...

Then I followed the streams of water and came to a sort of arched mini-lake. The bottom looked unfathomably deep.

If there were fish. But it looked like some kind of siphon, then I followed the lake, which suddenly seemed immense. An underground sea?

I wanted to drink, but yuck, the water was a mixture of salty and sweet.

Undrinkable!

It was connected to the sea.

Then, suddenly, a very faint light appeared in the background, like a very dim lamp.