Somewhere
"I am not joking, mother. My sprout is gone! Someone stole it!" The divine dragon insisted.
"And how exactly was it stolen when I know you are always watching that thing with one of your heads?" His mother was suspicious of this story. It might have been a trick to get more seeds from her. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried that.
"I don't know! It doesn't make any sense. I was looking right at it. There was no magic, no anything. In a single moment it was just gone and only the Emil. The pod was still there, but it obviously died because it had it's Emil removed." The young divine dragon was very frustrated.
"If I do a time check and find you are lying to me, you are in great trouble." The mother dragon popped one of her heads through a portal that entered her son's garden. She casted the necessary magic to peer back in time to the point where the leaf dissapeared and was baffled when she saw exactly what her son described. She even saw the horrified shock on his face when the leaf he was so happy about dissapeared in an instant. It didn't make sense. There was nothing unusual that could have possibly caused this to happen, and she would know. No one had better senses than she did. Some were equal to her, but no one was better. She was sure of it. What she was seeing was an impossibility.
"Ok, I'll give you another seed." She acquiesced to her son. "Hopefully this does not happen again."
"Thanks! I'll be extra extra EXTRA careful this time!" And he would be. This dragon would one day grow to be the greatest gardener among the divine beings.
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In the town of Uluunquetin
"Am I going crazy, or did that just happen?" Avita said aloud to her fellow town guard.
"I don't know. Depends on what you saw." Answered Vitor.
"Don't even start. I'm being serious. Did a naked man just apear in the town square, instantly create strange clothes on his body, and then vanish as quickly as he arrived.? Answer seriously, or I'll hit you." Avita was not in the mood to play.
"Wow. Harsh. Yes, I'm pretty sure that is what just happened. What is the procedure for this?" Vitor felt a bit intimidated. He had fought Avita before in their morning training. She was merciless.
"We tell Captain Klees. You stay here. Keep watch. Calm people down. Don't let strange rumors spread. I'll go." And with that she was off.
Things were strange. First she wakes up next to Vitor on the floor without knowing why either of them are there. That still bothered her. She woke up with all her senses enhanced somehow and her skin noticably clearer and smoother. There was also the thing with the public restrooom and all it's surrounding area being mysteriously clean. She had never seen anything so clean. It was freakish. And now a naked man teleports into the town square just to put clothes on and vanish. He did say something, but she could not recognise the language. What happned to the town where nothing ever happens?
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In the buried fortress city of Imamar
This place is pretty amazing. I walked through the long abandoned tunnels and chambers of this place for a few hours. It was facinating to explore. I was given basic knowlege about this place from the crystal, but that was nothing compared to seeing it myself. I cleaned everything I could. The place was pretty dirty. I teleported around quickly to get a full scope of the place with my new area sense and then decided that this place would be my residence. It had everything. This place was a complete city. I would make the central palace my personal spot.
Interesting to note is the lights. Turns out the place was set to night mode. I turned on day mode once finding the control panel and the view was amazing. The entire ceiling was something like a magical LED wall. It was amazing. A soft rainbow of colours swirled and flowed gently overhead. It was incredible. It also showed the true colours of everything around me.
The royal chamber bed was even better than the previous bed. It was over twice as large and somehow even more comfortable. I of cource examined it with my sense, but just because I could see the molecular structure and material properties, did not mean I could understand them. Materials science was not included in the knowledge the crystal gave me. It was pretty amazing that the beds were not magic. They were just really really really well made.
I decided to develop a game plan for how I would introduce myself to the world. I would first make myself invisible so that I could position myself in the right place at the right time. I wouldn't just pop into existence in the middle of a crowded area. That was a stupid idea. This time I would pass myself as a foreign noble. There were pleanty of fancy clothes in the palace to choose. I picked something that looked like travel garb but also spoke of status. I would call myself Ruler Emil. Sounds awful. It seems full of myself. . . Oh well. I would get used to it. The title had to be appropriate to my status. With my level of power and my recent claim on a territory the size of a very large city. The title of Ruler was only appropriate. I was the ruler of Imamar.
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In the town of Uluunquetin
It had been a few hours of just wandering around invisibly observing life. I realized quickly that I would be the perfect voyeur but didn't want to do that. So I filtered out all the naughty stuff from my perception. I will admit I did not do this immediately. I spent more than a few seconds admiring the work of art that was Hyevnur, the blacksmith's wife. That was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and I had gotten a veeeeery good look. I doubted I would forget her any time soon. I started feeling guilty when I saw her and her husband being all lovey dovey and cute. It was really beautiful what they had, and I felt like I was violating that. So I stopped all my voyeurism. It was strange how easy that was, far too easy. I didn't even regret it for a moment. I just made up my mind and stopped.
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That did get me thinking about my own romantic future. Whatever I might have potentially had with Anisia was gone forever. I hadn't really taken much time to think about getting with someone from this world, but I sure was thinking about it now. In fact, it dominated my thoughts. I was a straight 21 year old man plagued wit hormones. I could not help myself but think about marriage to a girl from another world. Some cultures here even allowed or encouraged polygamy. I considered it but decided that was definitely not for me. One woman was more than enough. I did not want to be outnumbered in my own home. I had no illusions as to what more than one woman actually meant. It meant trouble. I wanted deep emotional connection, not just sex. I had had just sex. I didn't like it. The sex itself felt great, but it was really dissatisfying. It felt emotionally draining. She only wanted me for one thing, and I just liked having someone who gave me any kind of attention. It worked just fine until I actually grew a pair and decided that I wanted more for my life. I wouldn't settle for sex this time around. I wanted a companion, a best friend, someone who would go through all the shit of life with me and be fine because we are together. I wanted to fill the loneliness and not just cover it up.
Before I knew it my former plan was gone, and I found myself scouting out the single ladies in my age bracket. I even teleported to some of the surrounding towns. I spent much more time doing this than I ever intended. My mind was set, and I was on a mission. I would find my perfect woman! Easier said than done.
The issue was not so much being able to find an attractive, single woman that had a good personality. The issue was me. I didn't know what to say. I figured 'hello, I come from another planet' was not the most appealing introduction. But how would I introduce myself? If I was really going to portray myself as a foreign ruler, then it made no sense for me to even be in such a place looking for a woman. I had to start slow. I had ro become part of the community and get recognition first. I can't just pop into existance with no relatives, no relations of any kind, and no reputation or history that could be verified and expect a woman to think I am exactly what she is missing in her life.
I decided to once again rework my plan. Why would a foreign ruler even be here in this town? Would I be up front about the location of my territory? I needed good answers to these questions. I needed a story that would hold up against questioning. I took some time to work it out.
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I figured it out. I restored the portal gate that connected Imamar to the surface. Fortunately I had the necessary knowledge and magical skill to do so. To get back normally required a magical 'key' that would usually be in the form of a ring or pendant. Once in range, the key would allow one to teleport in at will to designated 'landing pads'.
My story would be that I was the last surviving member of the Halagan race who had been living in secret for several thousand years till we dwindled to just myself. I would say I just lost the last of my family a few days ago and felt it was about time to join the rest of the world. My excuse for never trying to do so before would be because I was respecting the traditions of my family, but that with their death the weight of tradition seemed to lose it's meaning. Yup, that was my story. It was a bit weak, but it would have to do. I would attempt to improvise the rest as necessary. It helped that I actually had lost my family just recently. . . I should commemorate them in the Halagan tradition of magical disintegration.
There was a particular ritual that took some time to set up but eas really spectacular. It caused matter to dissolve into pure mana and rejoin the flow of the cosmos. Yeah, mana is the fundamental substance of everything here. It's kind of cool. It is a spectacular visual display and lasts about twenty minutes on average. That would actually be the best possible way to start my story. I'll have the funeral and just use random materials instead of bodies. That will attract attention and questions. I will be 'honest' and sincere in the fact of just losing my family, and as the only living speaker of my language on this planet, I have as much a claim to the legacy as anyone.
Then I realized I need to change my appearance. I look too human. I needed to look like something human-ish but not quite. I would use magic to reshape myself. It was pretty interesting how similar humans could be. Even in this magic world, plastic surgery was a huge industry. The difference with magic is that things like actually giving ones self bigger breasts or a different face was far more intricate. I only knew as much biology as pertained to this field of biological magic and the little I remembered from my university classes. Fortunately that as enough. With my perception I noticed I was not exactly a standard human anymore. I figured it was the leaves. I was much more physically healthy and robust than a human could ever be. I was also somehow prettier. It was hard to describe. My features were slightly better proportioned. My muscles filled out better, etc. It was strange to notice.
I would take this a step further and make myself something like a hybrid between Fae and Elgar. This meant increasing my height quite a bit. I could fortunately just spawn in raw material by my broken powers and use magic to mold myself into some kind of large and rugged elf man. It was really strange and took a long time to get everything looking and working just right, but I did it. Nobody knew that the Halagan race actually looked more like goblins than humans. They had strange ideas of what would be the ideal version of themselves, and split into several different factions of aesthetic. There were originally many more variants. Some were merfolk. Conflict of interest whittled the variants down to what we have today.
I was glad that I managed to keep my face almost the same while looking just barely different enough to be recognised as slightly Elgar or slightly Fae. This would work. I was convinced. I was also pretty excited because I thought I looked really cool. I celebrated by eating a few leaves.
Ah, bliss. Running through the forest laughing was so wonderful. Everything was wonderful. I think I scared quite a few animals. Doesn't matter. Life was great. Of all my abilities, this leaf thing was definitely the best.
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In the woods near Uluunquetin
The way the light sparkled and swirled was mesmerizing. It was like rising steam but also fire and electricity and smoke and sparks and fireworks all combined and flowing seamlessly. I decided at that moment that this was how I would commemorate the dead from that point onward.
I used duplicates of my own body molded with magic to look like my family. I even put one of myself as I originally looked to remember that this was really the end. It was a while before anyone got near. The magic did more than just a light show, it was musical the way it cracked, hissed, popped, whistled and boomed. It shook the air and the very space. Surely this was very very noticable.
Eventually I saw my plan working. It was not ideal, but it was a start. It's like everything before this was a prologue, and now the real story was starting.
"Make yourself known, worker of strange magic! We defend these lands and demand an answer for your actions here!"
It was a significant assembly of guards with blades drawn. Time to test my skills of diplomacy.