“Tarixi, it’s staring at me!” Aurelian said in a voice somewhat higher than his norm.
Iron Will is now Level 19!
“Calm yourself, Reclaimer.” the Echo chided him. “Can you not tell he is not breathing? That his eyes do not blink? See how his great body does not move? The leviathan is in a stasis field,” her tone seemed amused more than anything. “Though even if he were not, I sincerely doubt he would eat you. He would be far more interested in picking your brain on your origins. He was always insatiably curious about Nephilim.”
“You… you know—It’s a him?” Aurelian asked as he swallowed down another wave of panic, and silently thanked the System for his Iron Will skill. Even knowing and realising that the Dragon was unable to actually see him, and feeling for the first time the lack of radial warmth one would expect from any creature its size; he could not help but be terrified on a primitive level at the sheer immensity of the creature before him. If not for his Iron Will, he very well might have needed new pants due to more than just the fact they were torn to shreds.
The dragon really could have bodied Godzilla, and not the cheap Matthew Broderick one; the massive incarnation that casually walked through skyscrapers. The dragon’s black-and-platinum body looked like someone had laid down the mother of all skyscrapers and turned it into a monster.
“Of course I know him,” Tarixi said tersely, “or at least, the real me did. Bael’tharax is—was one of Elysea’s most ardent defenders. He and his kin were our greatest and most powerful allies. The Dragons hate the gods with a ferocious passion. They see them as usurpers.”
“How so?” Aurelian asked while he flared his Iron Will and moved forward with a cautious and measured pace until he could look at the patterns and striations within one of the gargantuan creature’s open golden eyes.
“Dragons are deeply connected to the Eternals. They each exemplify one of the primordial powers of the Realms. All of them except Bael’tharax, of course,” she smiled towards the frozen creature with a level of warmth and comfort that boggled Aurelian’s barely-controlled and nearly fear-addled mind.
“The gods sought to snatch the dominion of the powers from the Eternals entirely, and in some ways succeeded, until the first Calamity. I fear that people will have once again forgotten that the incarnations of the Ten Magicks are the Eternals, and not the gods that mortals now worship.”
“Is he special?” Aurelian said with a glance at Tarixi and a nod to Bael’tharax. “You said he didn’t have—well, that he wasn’t tied to a specific Eternal,” he had almost said ‘didn’t have power’, but the sheer insanity at the idea of even uttering the words when referring to a creature that could eat a T-Rex as a snack stopped him dead.
A snort was his reply as Tarixi drifted closer to join his examination. “Special, Aurelian? Bael’tharax is the King of all Dragons. He is able to wield all magic by will, and with far greater potency than any other of his kind. When Bael’tharax’s shadow fell over the battlefield, armies would lay down arms rather than risk the chance of his ire.”
“Then why is he here?”
“Justinian,” Tarixi said harshly. “He tricked and mortally wounded Bael’tharax with some sort of godsforged artefact. We placed him here, in stasis, to keep him from being slain. He is not only the King of all Dragons, but by the war’s end was one of the last. The Godsworn were prodigious in their slaying of the Dragons. There were never truly that many. A few thousand, perhaps. Too many died when their riders did.”
Aurelian’s attention zeroed in on her words. “Did you say riders?”
“Yes,” she confirmed with a sly smile, “I did. Dragons are one of few creatures capable of forging Soulbonds. They are able to choose a mortal and unite their souls. The result is that neither may die a natural death while the other lives, the growth of one is split between both, and each of the pair gains the benefits of the other’s magic. It also greatly enhances the combat prowess of both individuals.”
“I am sensing a very large ‘but’,” he said warily.
“Astute,” she said with a nod. “If one of the pair is slain, both will die. There is no exception to this. That is how the Godsworn first struck at us: they targeted and slew the Drakaii of the Ordo Draconis. Each dead rider was a dead Dragon. It was, I am loath to admit, a genius tactic. The Empire had grown too comfortable with the power of the Ordo Draconis to enforce the peace, and spread the teachings of Elysea. When the Godsworn attacked, the Empire was caught off-guard; crippled and unawares.”
“Yet you all fought for centuries.” Aurelian commented quietly.
“Yes. We had a good reason to fight. It was the war we’d been waiting for, we just…” she trailed off and sighed as she looked up at Bael’tharax, and Aurelian thought he could see a mix of regret, sadness, and soul-deep weariness in the goblin ghost’s translucent eyes.
It struck him then that, in his own idiotic selfishness, he had not considered just how defeated Tarixi must have felt. Despite her jokes, and prods, and optimistic statements; she was an Echo—an imprint of a Soul long, long dead.
How must it have felt to be shackled to the world, awaiting a saviour that might have never come? The very idea of it made him shiver.
Aurelian did not disturb her when she lapsed into a silent, thoughtful stare at the brain-meltingly massive dragon. Instead he wandered away from her deeper into the cavern and attempted to see if he could find anything else worth his attention in their immediate surroundings.
The vast majority of the space was occupied by Bael’tharax, but there was surely something else present. A control panel, or some sort of—of course! He nearly slapped his forehead as his realisation crystallised.
With a flex of his will, Aurelian summoned the System.
Alpha-One User Identity confirmed.
Welcome, Reclaimer Aurelian!
Awaiting input.
Hmm. Aurelian thought quietly so as not to disturb Tarixi, his right hand coming up to idly rub at his chin. What were his—? Another proverbial light bulb lit off, and he almost laughed out loud at how silly he was. The System wasn’t a computer on Earth, waiting for some predetermined set of command phrases. It might have seemed that way, but that very well could have been because it was how he translated it in his mind space due to his earthly origins. With hope he was right, he sent a questioning pulse to the System text hanging in his HUD.
Please clarify my options.
Input acknowledged.
Populating [Command List] . . .
[Command List] Populated!
AVAILABLE COMMANDS:
[Disable All Security Measures]
[Disable Specified Security Measures]
[Disable Stasis Field]
[Assess All Security Measures]
[Assess Specified Security Measures]
[Unlock Armoury Access]
[Activate Simulacrum Generator]
[Activate Animus Engine]
[Overload Animus Engine]
“What the hell is an Animus Engine…?” he muttered as he read the lines, all while forgetting he was very much not alone.
A quiet ‘ahem’ at his shoulder nearly made him leap out of his skin.
“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed as he snapped his head towards Tarixi. “Not cool!”
“Whom, or what, is this ‘Jesus Chri—’?”
“Not getting into it,” Aurelian said firmly. “How can I help you, Tarixi?”
She narrowed her ghostly eyes at him, but didn’t push the Jesus issue.
Instead, she did something even worse: she made an accurate deduction.
“You accessed the control system, didn’t you?” Tarixi probed shrewdly.
“I—er—maybe?” he answered with his best attempt at an innocent smile.
She did not appear to be buying it.
“Show me your options,” she instructed firmly.
Aurelian complied with only a small amount of chagrin.
The Goblin stared at the air in a way he had come to associate with System interfacing, and then turned to him with a mighty frown. “I want you to use the Assess All Security Measures command, and let me see what it reports.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Aurelian raised his eyebrows but shrugged his acceptance. Couldn’t hurt, after all.
“System, Assess All Security Measures.”
Command Input confirmed.
Assessing All Security Measures . . .
Results populated.
Facility 01-DSU-Alpha containment protocols are in full effect.
WARNING: [Undead] presence detected in all surface sectors!
WARNING: Attempted incursion in zones 3, 4, and 7!
WARNING: Surrounding territory’s [Life] and [Nature] mana at critical levels!
WARNING: [Animus Engine] has been offline for 1,829,380 days!
WARNING: Corrupted Nodes detected!
Re-Assessing Containment Security . . .
WARNING: [Containment Breach] by [Undead Infestation] predicted in 5 days!
WARNING: System unable to purify corrupted nodes!
WARNING: [Mana Reserves] are critical! [Stasis Field] will fail in 7 days!
“Well that all sounds absolutely terrible,” Aurelian said while reading the System prompts. “Five days until the undead ‘infestation’ breaches containment. I take it that means they breach this cavern?”
“Yes, and that is hardly the worst of it, Aurelian,” Tarixi said grimly while she turned to face him. “If the undead do breach this sector and discover Bael’tharax, there is a great possibility that whatever power is controlling them will be able to infest the Dragon King for reanimation prior to his long-overdue demise. That would be… incredibly bad. For everything. Everywhere.”
“Rewind,” Aurelian said with narrowed eyes, “and get back to the part where something is controlling the undead? I thought they were just reacting to my presence.”
“Yes, partially.” Tarixi agreed with a flicker of something Aurelian couldn’t quite identify. “But not solely. You were like a trigger of awareness for whatever fell power has taken residence within the Palace complex, but are no more than a catalyst. The undead were already enthralled long before you arrived, I wager. It is only your Elysean nature and the tormented spirits’ residual, millennia-long and cradled hatred for your species that saw them activated by your proximity. Specifically, by the spiritual signature of your Soulforce.”
“And now they’re trying to get in here?”
“Oh, I think they have been trying for quite some time. Very likely we only emerged near the end of their efforts. Based on what the System has said, the last time the Animus Engine was active was five thousand and twelve years ago, give or take a few days. That means in simple terms that it has been persisting off stored mana the entire time.”
“What is the Animus Engine?” he asked with an apologetic smile. “Er, the short version.”
“It—Hmph. Very well,” Tarixi said with a look of mild displeasure. “It is a construct designed to harness ambient mana and then convert it into Life and Nature mana to nourish the surrounding land, while also stockpiling unaspected mana for the palace complex’s use. The System interface you just interacted with is called a local nexus. It is an isolated part of the System unique to this place, put here by the Authority of the Imperator.”
“I definitely heard emphasis on an uppercase ‘A’ there, Tarixi. What is Authority in this context?”
“In the shortest possible way,” she said with another look of displeasure, “it is the power by which a ruler controls their territory and within the rules established by the System.”
“Okay. So that means that several of the local nexus nodes have been corrupted… and probably by the undead… and they want to get in here to kill and or corrupt Bael’tharax… which would be like unleashing Undead Godzilla with wings…” he reached up and rubbed his face, and then spoke through the muffling of his hands. “And I am guessing you are going to ask me to clean this all up, given I am literally the only one capable of it.”
“Yes.” Tarixi answered without preamble. “But! Not immediately.”
“...why not?” Aurelian asked with genuine confusion.
“Because I think that, if you’re going to do this, you could use a few tricks up your sleeve. Primarily, you would definitely find value in some magic.”
Aurelian’s eyes widened. “Woah, you think you can actually teach me?”
“You are past the age of ten, yes?” she asked with an amused tone. “Then yes. You have full access to the System, and I can teach you.”
“Awesome,” Aurelian said with a grin and rubbed his hands together. “I have ideas.”
“I am sure,” Tarixi said with a glint of amusement in her eyes. “Regale me.”
“Fire,” Aurelian said immediately. “It will be really useful against the undead, if my world’s lore is any good. That and lightning. There is a lot I can do with fire and lightning.”
“Oh, is that all?” Tarixi asked sarcastically. “Fire and lightning, just like that?”
“Well… Yeah? I mean… You can teach those, right? I remember seeing—”
“Yes, Aurelian, I am capable of teaching those disciplines.” the Echo said with an exasperated huff. “But that does not mean you will be able to master them enough to be properly combat worthy. It takes years of discipline and focus to become a proper battle mag—”
Aurelian was shaking his head already when he heard Tarixi cut off and saw her shoot him a spectral glare.
He did his best to ignore it as he spoke, while feeling quite bold and maybe a little rude.
He’d apologise after, he promised himself.
“I don’t need to know enough to become a battle mage,” he said in clarification while he watched her glare fade into thoughtful attentiveness. “I just need to know enough to keep my flanks clear and my enemies distracted while I cut my way through them. My Runesword is more reliable than any spell I could learn in three days might be, and I am specifically only looking to capitalise on and improve that strength.”
By time he was finished, the floating Goblin had lost all traces of annoyance, and Tarixi instead watched him with considering and weighing eyes.
“A spellblade approach would certainly suit your particular personality, I think,” she said with a hint of excited curiosity. “And as long as the magic is there in an augmentative capacity, I do believe the spells I am thinking of would work well and be easy to learn, given your Nephilim advantages.”
Aurelian just barely resisted fist pumping at her words, but the Goblin wasn’t done.
“Additionally, though, you will need to learn to better handle yourself in a fight. At present you are all male bravado, instinct, and passion. There is a natural cunning to your combat, but it is rooted in a limited understanding of the threats you face, and a natural predisposition towards reckless self-endangerment. Thus, we will do as such…” she drew herself up and Aurelian saw her slip the ‘I am the teacher and you are the student’ face on.
He’d have recognised it anywhere.
“You will train here in magic with me for three days, starting from now. You will sleep only on the third night, and—” she lifted a finger for silence when he opened his mouth to object “—you will additionally work on increasing your skill with your blade, and your spatial awareness, at the same time.”
“Okay…” Aurelian said while he tried to force himself to remember the time limit and not think about three days’ worth of no sleep, bullshit System stamina or not. “But how will I train? There’s nothing here for me to hit except rock, and a Dragon I do not want to piss off.”
“There was an option in your interface called ‘Activate Simulacrum Generator’, was there not?”
“There was…” Aurelian confirmed warily.
“Good. That will allow you to train against enemies with steadily increasing levels of strength, and will be good practice for your Mana Control, since you will be contributing half the mana needed for each combatant created, to avoid wasting the mana reserves being used to protect us and Bael’tharax.”
“Hmm…” Aurelian took a moment to think about it and then immediately realised it only needed a moment to think about.
There was in reality no choice.
He could either work with Tarixi and become stronger as fast as immediately possible, and in doing so equip himself with the tools to confront whatever came next… Or he could refuse, doom the Realms to an undead Bael’tharax, and probably die horribly to whatever horrific entity was controlling and raising the Undead.
A thought occurred to him, however. Well, two thoughts.
“How are you going to keep track of the time?” he asked curiously.
“The System interface showed you how long the Animus Engine had been offline, yes? Well to do that, it has to be able to track time. So… ask it to track time. That is the obvious solution.”
“Oh. Right,” Aurelian said with a mental facepalm. All those points in intelligence and his powers of deduction were failing him spectacularly. He looked towards Bael’tharax as he thought about it, and let loose a low ‘humph’. It was clearly the leviathan’s fault for distracting his poor, almost-scared-shitless mind, the way he figured it.
Sort of. Maybe.
He distracted himself by speaking up again. “And what will we do on the fourth day?”
“On the fourth day we will drop the Stasis field and awaken Bael’tharax,” Tarixi said solemnly. “If the worst should happen and you fail in your task, it would be better if the reason for our coming here were not lost as a result. You would still have kept alive some hope for the future.”
“And that is…?”
She smiled at him wryly. “Something to find out about on the fourth day. If you prove yourself worthy through your training efforts. I may be an Echo and you may be the Reclaimer, but I have no intention of going soft on you, Aurelian. This will not be an easy three days.”
“Six days, really,” he said abruptly. “Usually when you say days, people don’t count the intervals between each sunrise. So really, it’s… you know… six days.”
Tarixi clearly seemed surprised by that observation, and went silent as her features shifted into a look of thoughtful introspection. At last, and after several moments of long and thoughtful silence, she nodded her approval. “Three days and three nights, then, and hopefully we will produce a spellblade even the Aetheris Militant could be proud of.”
“The what?”
She smiled at him slyly. “Earn the information.”
Aurelian tried to suppress a return smile and failed. For some reason the idea of training, while daunting, also instilled a sense of… excitement inside of him. A feeling of challenge. He had wanted to see how far he could push himself, how strong he might become, and what he might accomplish.
He had dreamed, some days, of the very situation he found himself in: a world with real magic, with a System that controlled everything, and the chance to truly experience what it was to fight and gain power through adversity.
For all that three days and nights seemed exhausting even to think about, he could not in good conscience say he truly disliked it, nor the new ‘earn it’ attitude Tarixi was adopting.
Even in his time on Earth he had thrived best when given a truly enticing incentive to succeed. To exceed even. This was simply a natural extension of that personality trait, writ large and painted in the guise of magic—a thing which was itself extremely enticing.
“Are you ready to begin, Aurelian?” Tarixi asked, interrupting his introspective reverie.
“Uh. What about food and water?” he asked abruptly.
“You won’t need it immediately.” Tarixi said confidently.
“What?” Aurelian asked with genuine confusion.
“Earn the information.” the Goblin repeated with a smirk. “Now, are you ready?”
Aurelian sighed and shook his head. He should have seen that coming.
Still, not having to worry about food and water was a huge bonus. He felt reassured.
“Yes,” he said with a smile that came from the depths of his spirit. “I am. Let’s do this.”
Tarixi smiled back with an approving nod.
“As you wish, Reclaimer.”