Siara felt pretty hopeless, she imagined she wasn’t the only one though. They had already been in this pocket dimension for several minutes, and none of them had come up with an actual plan of action. Cynthia had recovered enough mana to try to enter his head forcefully, but all she had seen were flashes of images. She wouldn’t tell them exactly what she saw, but she seemed adamant it was the dagger producing the images and not Azura. The only comfort was that she had Gaia back. Her familiar sat on her shoulder and nuzzled into her. She smiled softly down at her familiar and patted its head gently.
In a sick way she was kind of glad the others were just as stumped as she was. She had always kind of felt like the odd one out since she wasn’t really exceptional at anything, but each of them were insanely good, at least in 1 thing if not more. None of them were mean about it to her of course, but she knew she was only a part of the group because that one trial had required 7 members. She hadn’t really decided to stick with the group until she saw how far they went to save Lily when She went on a rampage. She had no idea what he had done to stop her, but the mana from it was so immense that all the living things in the area seemed to stop completely, as if frozen in time. Whether she herself was worthy or not, she wasn’t dumb enough to pass up allies like that.
Well that was part of it anyway, at this point she could pretty safely say they were her friends, just as much as she was theirs. Her thoughts went full circle, back to being frustrated she couldn’t do anything for Azura. The only thing stopping them from panicking was that Azura was very clearly alive, and didn’t seem to be hurt aside from some bruises and a thin cut across his right cheek.
Cynthia had tried to heal the cut, but a black miasma had come out of it and attacked her, so after they escaped it’s range they hadn’t dared try and heal him again. Oddly enough, though according to Roran that was good news. It meant that a spirit was just trying to possess Azura, and none of them believed for a second Azura would submit to such a thing, and the longer this went on the more likely it was that Azura was going to successfully resist possession.
“Is it just me, or has it been way longer than would normally be expected for fighting off a possession? And that’s not even counting the time before we got here.” She didn’t especially want to be the one to bring it up, but none of the others were, so she took it upon herself to bring it to everyone’s attention.
“That dagger is no normal curse, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took days for Azura to break out, but knowing him the bastard will somehow manage it in just a few hours.” It had been over an hour already, but she supposed Lily would know more about curses than almost anyone else in their group. Aside from Roran, and probably Azura.
“Actually, I think he’s almost done. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was only stuck for a few more minutes.” They all turned to Roran, who was smiling brilliantly at his deduction. She raised an eyebrow at him to continue with his reasoning. “Look at the dagger, the handle is slowly turning white, and the gem is a much duller red now, I think it’s going to change color as well. Azura isn’t just escaping its influence, he’s purifying it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course he is, because doing anything the normal way would be too easy.” Despite her words she was smiling, as were the others. It was a pretty big relief that their de facto leader was going to be ok, even if it was a little annoying that at some point in his trip he had even become a real curse breaker, as if he didn’t have enough insane talents already.
“So who wants to prank him when he wakes up?” her smile grew even wider as mischief sparkled in her eyes. Now Lily was speaking her language. Most of the others agreed right away, though Cynthia and Luna stayed out of it. She may never get another chance to prank him like this, so she was going to make it count.
***
Azura groggily opened his eyes. The curse was lifted, and he was able to take control of his body again. Even though it felt oddly stiff, and a little heavier than normal. He saw his friends smiling brightly at him and was about to greet them, until he noticed something unusual out of the corner of his eyes. His eye twitched. He was caked in mud, from top to bottom, it was drying, and peeling off in some places, and there was no doubt why his body was so stiff.
“I hope you all know I’ll get you back for this. You’ve just started a war you can’t possibly win.” There were few things he hated more than being dirty, and this was a whole new level of dirty, however he also had a new trick. He dissolved his body allowing all the mud and dirt to fall to the ground, and reformed his body a few feet to the side. “And I won’t have mercy just because I learned a skill that invalidated your attempt.” Although he supposed the prank affected him to a degree, even if he was able to clean himself right away, so it wasn’t completely unsuccessful.
“What?! How did you do that?!” Roran and Katy asked simultaneously. Katy in concern, and Roran in excitement. “That’s amazing, I’ve heard of portals that break people apart and reform them, but those require complicated rituals on both sides of the portal, how were you able to do that on your own. What even caused you to reform?!” Roran was in research mode now, which was like all of his other modes, except even more energetic.
“I did that by being awesome… well that and by not really being human anymore.” He had thought alot about how he was going to break the news of his current form to his friends, and had unsurprisingly landed on humor as a means to defuse the tension of its reveal. By the looks on their faces he would say it only partially worked. They were tense and confused, but at least not outwardly angry.
“And by that you mean?” Katy gestured for him to explain. He took the lack of anyone yelling at him as a win. Not enough of a win that he didn’t at least sigh is exasperation, but at least he wasn’t being berated by his friends… yet anyway.
“Well so turns out my mom was a dragon, and bathing in the pool sent my soul to Avalon, where I found out that all dragons used to be fae, or I guess descended from fae at the very least. Anyway, I got burned at the stake essentially, and then reformed as a creature of magic. So I’m basically a fae/human thing now because the corruption was purged.” This was a strategy as old as time itself. Give as much information as you can, and hope it slows their processing down enough that they don’t ask any questions.
He should have known better than to try that strategy with Roran around. “Wait wait wait. You’re telling me that dragons are spiritual beings?! That… actually makes a lot of sense, but then what are dragon spirits?! Also if dragons are just fae, why do they function so differently?! Well not like there is a ton of evidence on how fae act or look, since Avalon is only a legend, or… I guess it’s not only a legend if you’ve seen it.”
The others just looked at him with raised eyebrows. It was obvious that unlike Roran they didn’t want the specifics, just enough to understand. Well he figured now was the time since they were in a pocket dimension and couldn’t exactly be overheard. He transformed into his dragon form. Although he restricted the size to his normal size so as not to freak them out too much. They all stared in shock and aww. “So basically this is just as natural to me as-” He shifted back. “This. Either way my body is purely made of magic now, so as long as my core is intact I can reform it.” He wouldn’t really go into the of 2 worlds aspects of his new powers just yet, wanted to make sure they were able to process the bombshells 1 at a time.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Which was why they would never know about the stuff his copy had done while influenced by the dagger. He’d make sure to get rid of those enchantments whenever he got a chance. He thought he was normally overcautious, but that was too much even for him.
“Great, so you’re immortal now? That’ll come in handy.” He rolled his eyes at Katy’s ribbing. A small smile came to his face. Even if he was being teased, it was nice to be among friends again.
“No, even dragons aren’t immortal, just very difficult to kill, and of course ageless, not really much different from a powerful mage.” Roran answered for him, but he didn’t mind he had a feeling he was going to have plenty to explain tonight. “Alright well you’ve been busy for a while I imagine, so I’ll let you off for not answering my questions for now, but we’re definitely talking about it tomorrow!” He smiled and nodded, he was really tired, but he’d be happy to talk about it at any other time.
“So, uhh do any of us actually know how to get out of here?” Lily asked. Everyone looked at him. He rolled his eyes, but looked through his copy’s memory. It looked like he had just repurposed the academy’s extra dimensional spaces. Or one of them anyway, getting out should be pretty simple, now that he had the specifics. A magic Circle spread out under their feet. It took a decent amount of mana, but he had recovered a good amount of mana, and the dagger had also supplied him with more. The light flashed brightly for a second, and then they were gone.
***
It was weird being teleported, when both sides looked exactly the same. The only difference was that the academy was visible in the difference now. Cynthia hadn’t even registered that it was gone in the pocket dimension. Azura and his copy must have wrecked it. It lacked its normal defensive spells no doubt, but it was still solidly built, and huge so completely wiping it out would take a decent amount of power.
They had all been practicing like crazy to make sure Azura didn’t leave them in the dust when he got back. Despite their best efforts she didn’t think they had really managed. They hadn’t fallen behind his copies, Arguably they were all more powerful than the regular copy, even her, but the dagger copy was able to fight evenly with them. That was even with the handicap that being copies, Azura now had all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses. Plus his own powers he had gotten on the trip.
Before Roran and Lily were actually either on par or more likely superior to Azura unless he tapped into his extra magic, but now she doubted he’d even need it. It was obvious Azura wasn’t used to his new body just yet, because he practically radiated magic. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was stronger than the teachers, at least in terms of mana capacity if nothing else.
“Finally back, for real this time. Now we just have to walk… all the way back to the academy.” Azura sounded exhausted, but at least he seemed genuinely happy. She was too. She had missed him and Argent a lot. The silver snake had wrapped itself around her waist like a belt, and she was glad to have him back. She sent him warm happy feelings that were quickly returned to her. She smiled softly.
“Maybe you can tell us some stories about your trip to pass the time.” She was curious about the stuff other than the pool. The being of magic thing was kind of weird, but knowing Azura, there was no way that was the only strange thing on his trip. The others looked at Azura in interest, so they all were just as curious as she was.
“Well it was definitely a pretty wild trip, I had to get my adventurers license, fight some monsters, fight some people, and leave pretty quickly.”
“Fight some people?!” She had expected that he would have to fight plenty of monsters, but why would he end up fighting people? He sighed, but went into more details about his trip.
***
Katy sat at a table with the others. Azura had gone to sleep even though it was only around 8. “So I know this is a weird thing to say, but did anyone else notice that Azura was unusually forthcoming today?” Azura was usually pretty secretive by nature, giving few details when explaining just about anything except magic, but he had told them almost everything and had said that he had some other stuff to tell them, but wanted them to process this stuff first, which she was grateful for honestly.
“I was thinking that too. I definitely feel like the human that turned into a monster bit at the end wouldn’t be something he’d normally share, especially with what he had to do to that monster in human skin.” She was glad not to be the only one to feel that way, and Luna was the best of them at detecting deceit or when information is being held back, so either Azura had learned a spell to prevent Luna from catching him in a lie, then he had been completely honest. Which was very unlike her friend.
“He did say that he was fused with his dragon instincts, and dragons aren’t really known for being secretive.” Roran said. That was partially why she was so concerned. The more honest bit was good, but who knew what other kinds of effects that fusion might have had.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m worried. He seemed normal enough, but how different is he? You all saw his dragon instincts take over the same as I did. He was willing to attack all of us just to keep his opponent off guard, that’s not exactly a good trait. Now I’m not against him killing that noble, but we can all acknowledge that he definitely would have handled that differently before the trip.” The others frowned as they considered her point.
“You have a point, but different isn’t always worse, or even unnatural. I’m a lot different now than before I met you guys, no magic required.” It was her turn to frown. Lily wasn’t wrong, but this felt a bit extreme to her.
No that wasn’t right, it wasn't the actions themselves, not even the changes. The real issue was- “But he hasn’t even noticed. He knows he’s grown, but I don’t think it’s even occurred to him how much he’s changed, and that’s what worries me most.” Azura was the kind of guy who would normally spot any kind of mental manipulation a mile away, yet he didn’t seem any the wiser this time.
“I don’t think that’s exactly right. Take this with a grain of salt since it was just fleeting surface thoughts, but I get the feeling he knows exactly how much he’s changed. I think killing the noble was his way of testing that very thing. He found his new limits to get a grasp on who he is now.” She sighed perhaps Cynthia was right. Perhaps she was overreacting. If Azura thought he’d be a danger to them he never would have come back, and he did say he had more to share with them, so she’d let it lie for now, but she would be watching him closely for the time being.
“Maybe… Unfortunately only time will tell, so either way it’s not like we have any options other than to wait and see.” The others nodded in agreement, and some of the tension had eased from their shoulders. Honestly even with all these new concerns she was just glad to have him back, even if his copies were there the whole time. She never really realized how much Azura did every day until he had to try and do all of it with only 2 of him. A small smirk came to her lips as she remembered how frantic the copies had gotten trying to keep up with the workload.
“So anyone want to take bets on how long it will take Azura to find trouble now that he has the time for it?” Lily broke the semi awkward silence with a smirk.
She laughed. “3 gold says he doesn’t make it a week.”
“A week?! I bet he doesn’t make it 3 days.” Siara chipped in with a smile of her own.
“I don’t know, give him some credit, he’s probably matured a little. I give it 2 weeks.” They laughed and chatted with the tension now properly eased. She was glad that come hell or highwater, her and Azura had people they could rely on. She smiled softly at their suddenly very rowdy friends. She glanced out the window, and for the first time in a long time didn’t have an ominous feeling about what was coming next.