“A Dragon’s Rider?” Aurelian asked with wide eyes as he looked up at Bael’tharax’s towering head. Surprise, shock, disbelief, and head-spinning levels of giddy joy burned through him with equal intensity, and he attempted to properly understand what was being asked. A Dragon Rider?! It was every nerd’s dream! “You want me to ride a—me?” he asked while pointing to himself, and still struggling with stunned disbelief.
“You are the Reclaimer, Aurelian,” Tarixi said while air-walking closer to stand in his eyeline. “This is your privilege, and should you accept, shall become your greatest burden.”
“I thought Bael’tharax was the last Dragon?” Aurelian responded while still trying to process his shock. The idea was, of course, not something he was going to say no to. Just the idea of soaring through the skies on the back of Bael’tharax gave him a rush so giddy he wanted to giggle like a lunatic, but something within his mind told him it wouldn’t be that simple.
He was missing something. He could feel it.
“I AM THE LAST DRAGON THAT YET DRAWS BREATH, BUT AS TO WHETHER THAT REMAINS THE CASE DEPENDS ON YOUR ACTIONS, HERE AND NOW.”
Aurelian’s eyes widened with immediate realisation.
“Eggs,” he breathed. “Dragon eggs!”
“You deduce things well, yes,” Tarixi said with a wry smile. “Though I will not ask how you knew. More wisdom from your mysterious place of origin, I would wager; though I suppose in some ways it wasn’t exactly unclear what Bael’tharax meant. Do you have any notion of what would be expected of you?”
“A bond of some sort, right?” he asked with a half-distracted mind, and visions of a little dragon dancing along his shoulder. The dreams of riding Bael’tharax across the sky might have been dashed, but there were other avenues of approach.
Plus, the phrasing implied he would eventually get a dragon to ride.
“CORRECT. A UNION OF HARMONY BETWEEN YOUR CORE AND THEIRS, YOUR SOULFORCE AND THEIRS, YOUR MIND AND THEIRS. TWO SOULS, TWO CORES, TWO MINDS, BUT ONE PURPOSE. UNTIL ONE, OR THE OTHER, PERISHES.”
“It would be a bond that enhances you both, and also offers great risk. When we gathered the eggs, it was assumed Bael’tharax would be able to ensure their survival in whatever world came after. He was still active in the war then, and when Justinian…”
The Echo’s features fell for a moment, and she inhaled to steady herself despite not needing air. “With Bael’tharax’s time ticking down every second, we cannot rely on him to protect the new generation. He will not last long enough for such a task. You, however, are the Reclaimer. You are the Second Calamity. You could be their shepherd.”
“You want me to rebuild Elysea with a bunch of Dragons yipping around me?” he asked in a moment of incredulity.
Tarixi laughed at his reaction, and even Bael’tharax rumbled in amusement.
“No, Aurelian. That is not the case.” the Echo assured him. “The plan we conceived prior to my death was for the Reclaimer to select those they—or he, in this case—deemed worthy from among friends and allies. Those individuals would in turn bond to a Dragon, and act as their partners and guardians until such time as the Dragons could properly repopulate.”
“I don’t have friends and allies other than you two.”
“INDEED, THOUGH I DO NOT DOUBT SUCH WILL BE CORRECTED IN TIME. WE HAVE STRAYED FROM THE MATTER AT HAND, HOWEVER. RECLAIMER… DO YOU ACCEPT THE TASK BEFORE YOU? WILL YOU AID ME IN THIS LAST REQUEST, AND SEE THE PRIME MATERIAL’S GREAT PROTECTORS RETURNED TO ITS SKIES, LANDS, AND SEAS?”
Aurelian laughed despite the seriousness and graveness of the request. “Really, old lizard? Using your death as a means to convince me?” he said while grinning at the dragon’s burning eye.
Bael’tharax rumbled another laugh in response.
“Well, you needn’t have bothered!” Aurelian continued. “Of course, I’ll do it! I’ve wanted to ride a Dragon since I knew what dragons were, back where I came from! Well, they aren’t real there, but we have plenty of stories!”
Tarixi’s ghostly figure visibly slumped in relief at his words, and Aurelian turned to her when she gave him a tired smile. “I had feared that my earlier misstep might have soured you on this, Aurelian, and I confess to doubting you even had the desire for such an undertaking. One cannot be forced or pushed into this task, and Bael’tharax shouldn’t have woven in that piece of manipulation, though I cannot fault his earnest desire.”
Aurelian shook his head. “There’s no ‘forcing’ about it. I’m being sincere. Nobody I know from my old world would say no to riding a Dragon, though some of them definitely wouldn’t do it for the right reasons.”
“Which is why the bond is not one-sided,” Tarixi said with an agreeable nod. “We have offered you the chance, Aurelian, and you have Bael’tharax’s blessing; but a dragon chooses their rider. It has always been the final decision of the dragon, and it has allowed us to avoid almost any situation of malfeasance or corruption among the Ordo Draconis.”
“The Order of the Dragon?” he asked at a quick thought.
Philology is now Level 6!
“Correct,” Tarixi said approvingly. “There were always outliers, of course. Dragons are still susceptible to corruption, greed, and malice as any species is. It is primarily the Dragon Kings that ensured their species’ continued adherence to their ancient charge, with aid from the Primes of each flight.”
“But now the King is dying and there are no Primes,” Aurelian said while his increased intellect worked on the problem. “Which also leads to other concerns, such as what happens if one of the new Dragons is corrupted. Realistically, if all other dragons are truly dead, then this new wave would be the Primes,” he reached up to idly run a hand through his shoulder-length, silver hair. “So if I’m not really careful about who I pick—”
“—you could inadvertently unleash catastrophe.” Tarixi finished for him gravely. “It is why you must be absolutely certain of those you select.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“Alright,” Aurelian said with a nod. “I understand. I really do. But… what if—and hear me out here—none of the eggs hatch for me?”
“THEN YOU SHALL BE THEIR CUSTODIAN, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A WORTHY PARTY APPEARS TO TRY THEIR LUCK WITH EACH EGG.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Aurelian said wryly. “Okay. So. Protect the eggs, select people who don’t have an inclination towards being wankers, and don’t die. Seems… easy enough.”
It did not in fact seem easy at all, but Aurelian wasn’t about to say no to saving what had to be the coolest species in any universe.
Dragons were awesome. It was really that simple.
“What do I need to do?” he asked after the decision was firmly made, and looked between Bael’tharax and Tarixi.
Instead of responding immediately, the Echo turned up to Bael’tharax, and then the world moved.
Or rather, the Dragon King moved, and everything shook like the end of days as a result. His legs came under him, and thousands of tons of muscle, scales, and flesh lifted from the ground with what Aurelian felt was the aid of magic. Even with the chamber hollowed out and excavated to the point it could have fit a town or small city, Bael’tharax’s wings brushed the stalactites above when he lifted himself to stand and moved his bottom half away from them both.
Aurelian watched in rapt fascination and awe as the ancient leviathan moved, and felt his heart rise up into his throat. The thought that such a creature, such a presence, whose very proximity was like a furnace of life, and power, and warmth could be snuffed out in the near future was… disturbing.
Disheartening and wrong, he realised, barely did the idea justice.
He felt tears burn behind his eyes, and blinked them away, as a sudden and staggering realisation of loss cut through him.
How vast and empty the world must have felt, without such titans to roam it.
Instead of dwelling on the miserable thought however, Aurelian turned to the purpose of the Dragon King’s movement as Bael’tharax settled himself down again. Only once the tremors and rattling from the dragon’s repositioning had died down, and he was certain that the old grump wouldn’t move again, did Aurelian turn to where once had dwelled nothing but draconic bulk.
Instead, there dwelled twenty-one eggs, arranged in haphazard order.
Their colour was a uniform grey, with what looked like rock-like scales and upward-facing hook-like spikes grown from their exterior. The eggs were far larger than he’d imagined as well, with each one close to four feet high, and at least half as wide. He moved over towards them wordlessly, and lifted his gaze towards Bael’tharax as he did.
“What do I do, gramps?”
Bael’tharax snorted with enough force to ripple through the cavern, and then tilted his colossal head towards Tarixi.
“Walk among the eggs, and reach out with your Soulforce. Feel their presence around you. Attune to them until one calls out to you. When one does, you focus on bridging that harmonic connection, and hone in on that egg.”
Aurelian turned to the goblin when she spoke, and then nodded when she was done.
It made sense if the Dragon was the one to initiate the bond. He would likely create some sort of resonance, or feedback loop, with the method she suggested. With that understood, he turned his eyes to the eggs, squared his shoulders, and then strode forward towards and between them.
Aurelian slowed his gait when he was two egg rows deep and reached inside of himself, taking a hold of his esoteric Soulforce and listening to it while pushing it outward.
Unlike with his mana, the act was incredibly simple.
It was as if his Soulforce wanted to expand away from him, and the moment he attempted it, he found an immediate feeling of rightness with his connection to the world. It was as if a lost sense had been reconnected, and he was able to perceive reality around him a way that should have already been part of his perception.
Congratulations, Aurelian Lucis Imperius!
You have met the requirements to unlock the skill Soul Sense (UC)!
Soulforce is the most intrinsic and fundamental aspect of any being in the Realms, no matter how virtuous or evil they may be. All creatures that exist within the grand design possess this energy, save for those from the Pits or Void Beyond. It is this energy that allows living creatures to connect, both with each other and the world, in a manner that transcends words. By extending your spiritual awareness and sensing the souls around you, you have taken your first step on the path to mastering this enigmatic and powerful energy of your own self.
Trust your feelings, Reclaimer!
“Huh,” Aurelian murmured while reading the prompt, “that’ll be useful when I meet actual people.”
He put the alert out of his mind and instead focused on what he was doing.
He pushed himself to feel, to taste, to know his Soulforce and the odd concerto that it sung back to him. Each note was an impression of nascent emotion, and each crescendo an echoing spark of awareness, sourced from the unique song of a reacting soul. Each dip and rise in the melody was the lucent glow of a slumbering mind, shining to his Soul Sense like a beacon in the darkness.
With his eyes open and his soul bared, Aurelian moved among the eggs with slow and methodical steps. One foot moved behind the other, keeping pace with the different sounds of spiritual melody that answered his new Skill. His gait was largely random while he searched for what he had no idea of, waiting for something to pull at him, or respond to him in some notable way.
So far it was a discordant ensemble of warring beats, each one a separate spirit and unique in their song.
Perhaps it was because it was Dragons he was sensing, but each one seemed somehow alien, and yet familiar. They were undefinable in that they superseded all comprehension he had of the idea of normalcy, and yet startlingly comforting in that they elicited feelings of courage, or ferocity, or wrath, or determination, or desire, or fear, or any other number of things that resonated with the deepest core of who—and what—he was.
They were no helpless infants, not in the manner of other animals.
Soul Sense is now Level 2!
These creatures were born with an adolescent mind, he realised with quiet shock, and already considerably developed within the safety of the eggs they inhabited. There was another sound that filtered through them all as well, a lullaby of sorts, which Aurelian identified after enough time listening to the music of their spirits. It was an enchantment or weaving, something forged entirely of Soulforce; and which kept the creatures in a state of enforced, and protected stasis within their eggs.
They could last there for thousands of years, he suddenly knew, even without the stasis that had preserved them and their leviathan protector.
These dragons had been spelled not to hatch until they found their soul partners.
It was a necessary act, Aurelian realised, but one that nonetheless left him perturbed. It was an enforced denial of independent action, and though he understood and perhaps even saw the justification behind it; part of him rebelled at the very notion. He had allowed himself to be corralled, controlled, and directed like that once before. On Earth. He had already vowed it would not happen again, not in the Realms, not where he had the power to decide his fate.
I am the sovereign of my own destiny, System or no System. He resolved firmly.
An echo of connection rippled across his mind when the thought actualised, and a harmonious chord—not unlike the strumming of a bass guitar—momentarily forced all other spiritual music into the background.
Aurelian turned on his heel as if compelled, and moved toward the echoing note.
He moved, with mounting realisation, toward his destiny.