Chapter Two - A Dragon's Strength

48th Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden Era

The Sapphire Ocean

Maldrak stepped out of the captain's cabin and out onto the ship's deck. He was immediately hit by a wave of warm, humid air as soon as he crossed the threshold between the room and the outside.

The Sapphire Ocean was known for being rather warm, especially in these parts where they were still out of sight of the mainland.

Men were moving about the deck, some tending to the ship, adjusting the sails or mending some of the lines above. A small part of the crew were hanging off the side of the ship on wooden planks held up by long ropes. They were scraping barnacles off the hull. They were particularly tenacious around this part of the ocean, or so he had heard.

Moving around and up to the quarter deck, Maldrak nodded to the helmsman and one of the ship's officers who was discussing something with the man before moving on towards the poop deck at the very back.

The Gentle Tidings had been his ship for some twelve years now. It was a three-masted carrack he had purchased from a merchant company that used to travel from Draya Calyrex to Oraya Lyscara and back. The very same trip they were embarked on at the moment.

At the time, it had been something of an unnecessary purchase. The cost of upkeep and training and the docking fees was only barely worth the value in having a ship of his own to travel upon. Now, however? The cost of ships, he imagined, would have jumped up significantly, and maritime trade was going to be a contentious issue.

Piracy was going to rise. He just knew it. But that would be an issue for the future. At the moment, the Sapphire Ocean was yet safe, and if it came to it, the Gentle Tidings had an entire cohort of mages aboard, and these weren't common recent-graduates, but well-studied and capable masters of the arcane arts.

Pirates wouldn't be an issue for very long.

He found that especially true as he stepped up the small tilted ladder onto the poop deck.

"How goes it?" he asked.

There was a broad-shouldered man standing there, his shirt removed so that he was merely in trousers, a fact that exposed his well-muscled frame to the elements.

He was covered in sweat at the moment, though it didn't seem to come from exertion. Around him were the three puppets they'd only finished the day prior. They laid on the ground, only one of them trying and failing to stand itself back up.

"Maldrak," the man said. "It's certainly going. These three are as coordinated as inebriated ostriches and only half as graceful."

Maldrak nodded. He had expected as much. "Do they have any potential?"

Jorvin Ashheel was a mage-knight of some small amount of repute who had come to be in Maldrak's service a few years ago as a retainer. The man was a capable caster, though his passion lay in the martial arts and applying his arcane knowledge to those. It made him a formidable knight, though he was now more white of hair than he had once been.

"Too early to truly tell," Jorvin replied. He gestured to the one puppet standing itself back up. It had a small Three carved onto its chest. "That one is tenacious. The other two are taking longer to tell their elbows and knees apart. They're worse than war dolls would be."

"Hm, I suppose that was a risk that comes with the particular way these were created," Maldrak said.

"Most war dolls I've seen aren't exactly graceful, but they can at least walk and stab a spear forwards," Jorvin said. "What's up with these three?"

"They have more complex minds and souls. To leave such unshackled means to forgo some of the... base programming that the mass-produced war dolls you may have seen are usually given. And war dolls are usually crafted from the body of the deceased directly. These three have very little of their original bodies left. It's nearly all artifice."

"What's the advantage?" Jorvin asked. "I've never known you to pick the worst option unless there's something others don't know."

"It's not an unknown fact. Puppets created in this way must learn to move on their own, but they aren't limited to the strict mechanical motions of a war puppet. They may be worse, or they may grow to be better. Give them some time and they may even learn some of those martial arts you enjoy so much."

Jorvin snorted. "I'll see about that," he said.

"I hope you shall," Maldrak replied with an easy smile. He glanced eastwards, towards where the mainland would be showing up soon. "We have another few days before we encounter the shore."

"They can barely walk," Jorvin replied. "It'll be a waste of resources to send them out as they are."

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"I have some plans with regards to that," Maldrak replied.

"Oh?" Jorvin replied. He narrowed his eyes, then turned his attention back to the puppets. "You're going to allow them to collect fragments?"

Maldrak smiled. Jorvin was a keen man, no matter how brutish he might seem to some. "Exactly."

"Dangerous," Jorvin replied.

"I trust that it will end well," Maldrak returned easily. "With that in mind... are there any concerns with the puppets at the moment?"

Jorvin rubbed at his chin. "They're clumsy, but we'll have to see if they improve in that regard. My biggest concern is their fragility. They're made of wood. I've seen some war puppets at certain palaces that were made of good dragon-wrought steel. Golems that can take a knight on in a fair fight. These three? A farmer with a fork could pin one of these to the deck with no issue."

"A fair point," Maldrak replied. "These bodies are temporary."

"Is that wise? They will learn to move with these, and then you'll give them greater bodies?"

"I first need them to prove a point," Maldrak replied. "Or rather, to prove their worth."

Jorvin shook his head. "Hardly fair. You're sending a squire out to defeat a dragon with nothing but a stick and a pat on the back and promise to give them armour and a spear if they live through it."

"Not a dragon, no," Maldrak said. "I have a challenge planned out for these three. Something suitably easy. If they overcome that, then I'll improve them. They will, in a way, scale their improvements based on what they can accomplish."

Jorvin hummed. "That's a lot of pressure. Are you certain that we wouldn't be better served making landfall ourselves?"

Maldrak hummed, then shook his head. "Wait here a moment," he replied.

The Magus left the poop deck, returning all the way to the main deck where he soon found himself speaking to the officer on deck. Soon, a bucket was lowered off the side. A few moments later, it was raised up, filled with half a dozen barnacles.

He inspected these, then nodded and plucked one out before strolling back up to the rear of the ship where Jorvin had stood the three puppets back onto their feet. They swayed a little, and when he signalled them to move, the three stumbled in his direction.

The man ducked under a wild swing, kicked the leg of the first puppet down, spun, grabbed the arm of the second, and pulled it into the third who tried to keep her feet but who inevitably crashed onto the deck.

"Martial arts already? I expected you to start with something simpler," Maldrak said.

"You gave me leave to train them, and that's what I'll do. Besides, what would be simpler than this?" Jorvin asked. "It's not as though they tire, or feel pain."

"I thought, perhaps, walking?" Maldrak asked.

Jorvin chuckled. "Nah. Learn to run first, I say. Is that a barnacle?"

"It is," Maldrak replied. "Sit the puppets up, they may want to observe this."

Jorvin had the puppets stand back up, a task which seemed difficult for all three. Staying up was just as much of a challenge, though they managed for now.

"This is a simple barnacle if examined by an untrained eye," Maldrak said as he raised the rocky lump. "But this one has fed on dragon flesh. Now, it's dragon flesh a thousand times removed. Likely this is a barnacle that has fed on some detritus that washed into the ocean, or perhaps a tiny piece of the flesh of a fish that ate the remains of an animal that ate another animal that in turn ate the remains of a dragon. Dragon flesh has a particular magic that allows it to... survive throughout the chain of life, no matter how many times it is digested and redigested."

"How tenacious," Jorvin replied. "I imagined that that particular barnacle would be a poor meal, then?"

Maldrak nodded and observed the barnacle. Its shell was harder, very slightly warped, but also scaled to some small degree. A cancerous growth was pushing out of its side, and it seemed to weep. His arcane senses painted it as something vulgar and putrid. "Indeed," he replied. "But when it is destroyed..."

The Magus summoned flame, and the barnacle lit up into a small blaze of contained fire. What was left after a bare moment was a small blackened puck that the Magus tossed over the side. He plucked something out of the air. A small, translucent thing, no bigger than a down feather, and a thousand times as wispy.

"This is a fragment of a dragon's strength. It is what made the nation we are going to visit so obscenely powerful, because most living things consumed these with every meal and breath. This, here, is power, and I intend to allow these puppets to consume it and use this same power to transform into something more."

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