“Your dilemma is not easily solved.” Zylara said in an exasperated tone while the three continued their descent. “I cannot say I am not envious of your breadth and width of skills and options, but I must admit that it also strikes me as somewhat overwhelming. There are just so many, and your options are even more varied.”
“Your thoughts on Pain Tolerance have merit,” Karsys added when she finished, “but so does your logic with Mana Control. I, honestly, am not much of a spellcaster personally, and prefer the use of my own weapon skills to overt magical evocation, but…” he frowned in thought while they walked. “I must admit that Pain Tolerance does seem to be the better immediate choice, while Mana Control seems to have greater long-term benefits. The problem though—”
“—is whether or not I’ll survive long enough to make the long-term benefits worthwhile.” Aurelian finished.
Karsys nodded in agreement with his deduction, and seemed to fall back into quiet consideration thereafter.
“Your lack of ranged attack options is a little worrying, though.” Zylara pointed out. “If you can’t close distance with an opponent, you have few to no answers for what to do. If someone were to hold you at bay with magic, or ranged attacks, you’d be largely helpless.”
“That’s true.” Karsys agreed. “And even with your Monarch’s Bloodstorm Infusion, it won’t matter if the damage doesn’t rely on kinetic force. Arrows, blades, and spells can still hurt you without kinetic force.”
The fact that the people of the Realms understood phrases and terms like ‘kinetic force’ but boggled at the mention of ‘electricity’, ‘gunpowder’ or ‘computers’, as he’d learned after mentioning both to his new companions in passing, remained a point of some amusement for Aurelian. The ignorance of science enforced by the ease of access to magic had always been an amusing part of fantasy worlds to him, and the Realms were no different.
“I picked up plenty of random weapons, and items, which I could use as throwing weapons during my time in the palace, and have used some exactly that way—but I’ve yet to develop any sort of ranged attack Skill.”
“Were you throwing with, or without focus?” Zylara asked immediately.
“Uh, without I suppose?” Aurelian answered with a raised eyebrow.
“Then that explains it quite well.” she responded matter-of-factly. “All Skills are based on an Intent, not simply the action itself. For example, you do not gain a Running or Acrobatics Skill until you focus, even without realising it at times, on Running or Acrobatics. Then, suddenly, the Skill blossoms, and you are aware of it in a way you weren’t before.”
“That… actually makes sense,” Aurelian said with a nod.
“Well of course it does. I said it.” Zylara said primly.
Karsys chuckled to himself, and Aurelian chose to take her slight return to arrogance as a sign of her growing comfort with his presence, as opposed to just an annoying personality quirk.
He’d take ‘arrogant comfort’ over ‘simpering worship’ any day.
“So going back to ranged skills, I do have magic, but I’m guessing that all magic comes with an Uncommon rarity, and that Shockbolt and Firebolt aren’t anything special?”
“The fact you can use two elements with any great level of ease is special.” Zylara corrected. “I myself can only use two, but that is considered excellent among most denizens. The greatest spellcasters can manipulate as many as four, but they are born once or twice a generation.”
“How do you tell which elements you have access to, other than skills?”
“Your Core.” Karsys answered in his calm voice. “It will always be reflected, in some manner, by your Core. The colour defines the primary magical force you are blessed with, and any others you have access to.”
Aurelian hesitated for only a moment, and then frowned. “My Core is prismatic.”
“Prismatic?” Zylara asked curiously.
“It has every colour in it.”
“...”
Both Zylara and Karsys went quiet after that, and he heard both give a heavy sigh a few moments later.
“Nephilim. By all the Eternals, you really are a monster, Aurelian.” Karsys said without malice. There was a level of awe in his tone, in fact. “Every colour? That infers complete access to every magical force. It’s—it’s absurd.”
“It’s exactly what you’ll need if you want to do what you proposed, and actually kill the gods.” Zylara said with a more practical tone. “Part of me always wondered, despite everything I’d been taught, if the prophesied Nephilim truly would be so special. Charlemagne is one thing, but—”
“Hold up,” Aurelian said while stopping abruptly, and turning to face them both. “Did you say Charlemagne?”
“Yes.” Zylara said with a look of confusion. “What of him?”
“Who is Charlemagne?” Aurelian asked again while looking between them.
“The Regent of Sanctuary.” Karsys answered steadily. “Did we not mention his name before?”
“You certainly did not.” Aurelian said with a racing heart.
“Oh. Well! Charlemagne was placed there to watch over our people, and the citadel of Last Hope, by Lucius Tollarius himself.”
“And you implied he was a Nephilim?”
“I did.” Zylara confirmed. “Why is that—?”
“Charlemagne is the name of one of the greatest Emperors and Generals the world—my original world, I mean—had ever seen. The man is considered to be among the most prodigious, if not the most prodigious wartime and peacetime King in history. You’re telling me that Charlemagne is the leader of Sanctuary?”
“I… we had no idea that he was…” Karsys trailed off in surprise.
“Charlemagne is… eccentric.” Zylara said with a glance at Karsys. “A little unstable. He likes to rant about being an Emperor, but we all thought he was just a little mad, or perhaps full of himself. It was never a problem for how he ran the Sanctuary, but…”
“Why the hell do you need me if you have fucking Charlemagne?!” Aurelian asked with a look, and tone, of sheer incredulity. It was nothing compared to the shock burning through his system. “The man is a legend! The legend! The only thing better would be the Emperor I named myself after, or maybe Alexander the Great, or Trajan, or Caesar Augustus, or—”
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“He’s an Echo!” Zylara cut in a little loudly.
Aurelian stared at her in surprise for a moment, and she swallowed, but continued without stopping. “He—I… he’s an Echo, my lo—Aurelian. The real Charlemagne died thousands of years ago. His Echo was preserved and maintained by the Empire because he was one of the few Nephilim who didn’t go entirely mad before the end. He…” she faltered and turned to Karsys.
“He is all we have left of the old ways.” Karsys picked up, while giving Zylara a reassuring smile. “The only thing left of our true heritage. Everything we know of Elysea, of the Empire… it’s all been passed down directly from Charlemagne, and he keeps it from being muddied, or misunderstood, century after century. Something in the Sanctuary keeps him going. He draws strength from the sustaining force of the settlement, and his duty.”
“He is extremely dedicated.” Zylara continued in a calmer voice, though she still seemed a little withdrawn after her outburst. “A man of pure will. It is perhaps not a surprise, now, to hear of who he was, from one who knew of him. We knew he was a highly capable statesman and administrator, and his work has kept our military forces incredibly potent throughout the millennia, but we never expected…”
“An Echo,” Aurelian said when Zylara trailed off, and then leaned his weight against the bannister. “Of course. An Echo. That makes so much more sense. The fact it’s Charlemagne is still insane, but as an Echo… yeah, I could see that, especially if the old Empire learned his actual value. Christ…”
“DID I HEAR YOU CORRECTLY?” An earth-shaking voice boomed suddenly. “CHARLEMAGNE LIVES?”
Karsys and Zylara dropped into combat stances—amusing without any real weapons—and looked around with open shock at the sheer force of the reverberating voice, and the sudden shaking within the cavern. Aurelian suppressed a smile and looked out into the blackness, only to be met by the sudden blaze of a single, massive golden eye.
“Hello, Bael’tharax.” he said calmly. “You’re using your flair for the dramatic again, I see.”
The massive leviathan snorted powerfully enough to almost shake Aurelian free of his precarious position, and he frowned in annoyance at the massive dragon.
Karsys and Zylara, however, were not handling things well. Karsys was on the steps hyperventilating, and staring at the eye like he was midway between a stroke and shout, and Zylara appeared to have been struck dumb by the sight of it.
She just clung to the bannister,and stared with wide eyes and a clenched jaw.
“Great…” Aurelian muttered, looking over the pair of them, and then turning back to Bael’tharax. “Hey, gramps? Can you go wait down there—” he pointed downward “—while I collect my new companions, and try to work them through the trauma of your, like, gigantitude?”
“DO NOT TARRY. I WISH TO HEAR MORE OF THIS TURN OF EVENTS.” The Dragon King growled before vanishing down once more into the depths, which steadily began to light up now that his intended trick was done.
How an ancient, and worldly being thousands of years in age could be so amused by pranks was a mystery Aurelian had yet to solve. Then again, his own grandfather—Pop as he’d called him—had loved to play practical jokes. Maybe it was an old person thing.
“Yeah…” he said while turning back to his new companions. “Sorry. I should have warned you both about, uh, that.”
He took a breath, and then continued.
“So! That’s Bael’tharax, the last Dragon King, et cetera. He’s Bahamut’s father, in simple terms.”
Karsys and Zylara both turned their shocked features to him, and he smiled in amusement.
“Hey look. Karsys is finally almost as pale as you are, Zylara.”
That seemed to get through to them, and suddenly the pair were collecting themselves and throwing a blistering salvo of questions at him—one which Aurelian could barely make heads and tails of.
“Where did he spend—?”
“—alive all this time—”
“—possibly expect us to—”
“—completely insane that he—”
“—help with Sanctuary’s defe—”
“—us to fight the enemy army—”
Aurelian threw his hands up and shoved them open-fingered into each of their faces, stopping their joint fusillade of questions dead.
“Enough,” he said with a hint of annoyance. “Neither of you were entitled to any information, I’ll remind you, and while I am sorry for not warning you about him, I will point out that you also never thought to ask why we were descending into the gigantic black cave.”
“I thought it was Bahamut’s lair…” Karsys admitted sheepishly.
Zylara remained tight-lipped, but her glance at Karsys told Aurelian she likely shared the assumption.
“It’s a little big for Bahamut, but it’s not an unfair guess,” Aurelian said while lowering his hands. “Look, you can ask Bael’tharax as many questions as he’s willing to answer—but first we need to get down there, and both of you need to get a grip on your panic. The place is lit up now, so just look over the edge while we descend, and you should be able to see the big lizard lying there. Use the time to wrap your heads around his scale.” Aurelian sighed from memory. “It helps.”
“How were you so unaffected by his presence?” Zylara asked softly. “I felt as if I were about to be crushed when his eye appeared, like the heart in my chest would explode at his mere whim. It was… it was overwhelming. He is overwhelming.”
“I didn’t develop Dragon’s Resolve without incident,” Aurelian responded simply.
That seemed to satisfy them both, and Karsys and Zylara jointly seemed to relax, somewhat, upon realising that they weren’t massive cowards for falling apart at Bael’tharax’s presence.
“As to why he can’t just blow out of here and kill all the undead… well, that’s because he’s dying.” Aurelian said with blunt honesty, and turned to continue descending. “Follow me and I’ll tell you the whole story from when I arrived, to meeting Bael’tharax, and even how I met you two. I guess it’s about time I did, really, and Bahamut has probably filled in Bael’tharax and Tarixi already.”
“Tari—?”
“Another Echo.” Aurelian explained. “Sort of my teacher, along with Bael’tharax. I’ll explain while we descend.”
True to his word, Aurelian launched into his explanation, starting from his memories of his last day on Earth and all the confusion and wonder that it inspired in his new companions. He took pleasure in explaining the many differences between Earth and the Realms, and especially the way in which humans in his original world had innovated to make up for the lack of magic.
On and on they spoke, and down and down they descended, all while Aurelian told his tale and his new companions listened with a mix of disbelief and interest. They pointed out various points of flawed logic as well, such as his lack of experimentation with weapons like spears or the quarterstaff, which would have suited his situation perfectly; or the fact that he was sheathing his sword on his back.
That, he learned, was apparently very illogical and inefficient.
They were quite emphatic about that.
He even received a mild chastisement for the reckless way in which he upgraded his Skills, and was told more than once how important it was that he not melt his own brain through the use—or rather misuse—of upgrade and evolution points.
Zylara even announced, quite boldly, that she would ensure he learned how to wield a bow, if for no other reason than the fact his access to all magic—especially Lightning and Force magic—would make him a terrifying Archer if he became even halfway decent.
By time they reached the lowest levels of the Dragon’s Lair, the pair had also largely adjusted to Bael’tharax thanks to their constant, and progressively less wide-eyed looks at the gargantuan dragon. Seeing a creature bigger than some settlements was likely more than the pair could fully wrap their heads around with immediacy, but exposure over time had dulled their shock into a more placid sense of passive awe.
That, though, he couldn’t blame them for. When viewed from on high, Bael’tharax’s scale was staggering.
When they started making their way across the relatively flat surface of the cave after reaching the bottom, Aurelian glanced back surreptitiously to ensure both the elf and human were keeping it together while approaching the massive head of Bael’tharax, and hovering projection of Tarixi. To their credit they moved with determined, straight-backed postures; and met the sight of the skyscraper-devouring dragon with steel in their spines.
If their skin was a little pale, or there were a few glimmers of sweat on their brows, Aurelian wasn’t about to judge.