Prologue

The mature Earth Drake sighed to herself as she prepared to lay yet another clutch of the pebble sized eggs. This was, supposedly and ideally, the last one Gna needed to lay to qualify for the evolution she wanted, “Elder Broodmother”, and that excited her, since the class she wanted—“Hivemind Dominatrix”—could only be obtained once she got to the 10th level in “Elder Broodmother”. Thus, she’d allowed a final, pathetic male to fertilize her eggs and here she’d had to descend, to the First Step, to lay this final clutch.

Void below, but the First Step was a terrible place. The air was clammy and thick with the absence of magic, and there wasn’t any nearby arcanite to enrich the surroundings with its glorious, enlivening power. On top of that, this far down, the stars weren’t visible and everything was instead permanently submerged in this depressing dimness only lit by occasional spews of magma exploding up from the absolute bottom of the Divine Ring, the origin of the Void. Gna couldn’t help but disappointedly shake her head and look up, hoping to see some glimmer of the upper Steps’ beauty. She was, of course, disappointed, and resumed her tromping steps to a “safe” location for her clutch.

Once, the Earth Drake had decided the trek all the way down was too troublesome, and simply laid the eggs where she was. In her defense, Gna had constructed a safe little nest for the excreted pests, but that hardly mattered since it had been the Fourth Step, and that was effectively a death sentence, even if the clutch had lasted long enough to hatch, which she honestly doubted. She was willing to admit, perhaps only due to her now having to pay the price for her previous laziness, that she should have taken the time to descend.

A different time, the Earth Drake had laid her clutch at the very last step before descending into the magma that made up the beginning of the Divine Ring, the eggs audibly sizzling as they dropped to the ground beneath her. There had been a couple of survivors from that clutch, but only barely enough to qualify for a successful laying, so the soon-to-be mother Gna decided to lay this (hopefully) final clutch in the safest, most advantageous location she could find. Thus, she’d settled on this muddy yet waterless creekbed. Once upon a time and in a higher Step, there might have been a steady flow of pure, wonderful water here, but now, there was nothing more than a pitiful piddling of liquid, just enough to keep the banks muddy, and that only just.

So, the mother slowly carved out a little divot in the earth before laying her eggs. It was a slightly larger clutch this time around, with nearly 50 eggs filling the small hollow in the ground. With a smile, the Earth Drake mother spread the eggs just enough for each one to be able to hatch, but not far enough for the little parasites to miss each other. After all, if she ensured that the strongest survive and could gain easy experience quickly, then she would qualify for her evolution, and that was all that mattered to her.

Finally, with a careless sweep of her tail, the mother buried her newly laid eggs before slowly beginning her trek back up to her current home in the Sixth Step. Gna would make sure to hunt something in the Fifth and get her energy up, just in case something had settled into her den while she was gone. After all, she couldn’t control other things to do all of her bidding yet, so she’d need to be ready.

…

Days and then weeks passed, the eggs unmoving under their shallow earthy covering. There was no sure way to tell time this low in the Divine Ring, since the only measure of change was the inconsistently flowing and spurting magma below. Once, a stray lavaline, a feline creature with pulsating orange veins below its skin, had come close and begun digging to find a meal, but it was driven off by several swooping ravens, their large beaks hissing through the air like daggers in pursuit of the lavaline’s flesh.

Then, after three full cycles of the unseen stars, the first stirring of the interred eggs began. The young were hatching.

Chapter 1 Hatching

There was only darkness, and in the darkness, she knew only three things. Her name, Khall. She was hungry. She needed to escape to eat.

It was tight and warm where she’d been for forever, but now she was hungry. She needed to eat, so she needed to leave. She stretched, but her tail and face pressed against the unmoving walls. No matter where she turned or twisted, a smooth wall greeted her. She tried to hiss her anger at the walls, but they didn’t listen, and her throat filled with something so she closed her mouth as she continued to search for an exit.

Frustrated, Khall smashed her face into the annoying wall. This first sensation of pain… Khall didn’t like it. But the wall also cracked a tiny bit, so she forcefully rubbed a small nub on the tip of her nose into the crack. With a stretching and forceful pressing of her full body, cracks spread out on the wall. Slowly, a flickering, warm light began to spread, and, roused by the change, Khall pushed harder and more excitedly at the crack.

Finally, her nose cracked through, and warm air began to spread through her prison. Excited, Khall stretched her tail out, pressing it against the back wall before, with a grunt of effort, her head slipped through the cracking shell and into the air. She chuffed happily at her successful escape and with another straining of effort extracted her arms from the shell as well. There was a loose coating of earth spread above her egg, but her head had already crested and escaped the ground. Then, with a brief scrabbling of her hands, she was able to clear out a path and began to haul her body up and out of the eggy prison.

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Khall put her snout to the air, the wetness of her egg drying in the hot wind as she sniffed the air and closed her eyes. It smelled like earth, fire, and food. Khall didn’t know why she knew what she did, only worrying about that last smell, food. Opening her eyes and looking over, there was a small, weak-looking creature, and, instinctively, Khall rushed over to it, hissing a battle cry.

The little thing was scaled yet slimy, had four legs and a tail, and a wide mouth that opened piteously to scream for mercy as Khall charged it. It was like a smaller, weaker version of her, Khall thought, so it might be bad to eat… but no! Hungry things need to eat! And this thing was stupid and weak! She resumed her hissing rush, and lunged at the little prey. It began to try to flee, but Khall wouldn’t permit it to escape, lunging and catching it by its tail as she hauled it back towards her.

It screamed in pain and turned around, snapping its jaws. It managed to catch Khall’s face, and she released her prey with a pained scream of her own. Enraged, she jumped onto the worthless prey that didn’t realize its place and began snapping, scratching, and bludgeoning it with everything she had. Its head was too hard to crunch through the way she wanted, its body too tough to scratch through with her flailing claws, but with her entire body bouncing up and down on its arm, there was progress.

With a screaming cry of pain, the prey’s arm snapped and its body fell to the ground under it. Khall grabbed it by the back of its neck and began bashing its head against the ground repeatedly, its pained squeals and screams softening until only dull thumping of bone on stone remained. A glimmering of recognition of growth flashed through her, and a sound she instinctively understood as language announced while the same sounds appeared as written words in front of her. Khall never questioned why she could understand the words or the sounds, but what they said made her happy:

[Juvenile Mud Lizard, 1, slain. You have gained experience. You have levelled up to level 2. Current Racial Designation: Juvenile Mud Lizard. Current Occupation: None.]

[Proceed towards the Divine Summit.]

Panting, Khall dropped the heavy body of her prey, her spirits soaring in celebration of her victory. An angry, hissing sound came from ahead. A creature looking much like her prey and Khall herself came out and towards her, but Khall screamed her own challenge back at the cowardly creature, and it backed off, pursuing another one of its kin. Khall stood tall over the body of her prey and looked around to make sure no other fool dared to approach.

Khall took stock of her surroundings. She was near to the edge of a swarming mass of brawling creatures. The dim light of flame illuminated the battle stage, coming from a flowing, glowing river nearby. These flames were the only source of light, and Khall only saw other fellows like herself ripping, biting, and clawing at each other. The would-be robber she had scared off was not the only creature eyeing her current bounty, so Khall hissed menacingly at them while she dragged her first kill and prey away.

She didn’t drag the carcass far before beginning to tear into it. The scales still proved too tough for her to easily bite through, but she found that if she grabbed something with her mouth and ripped it upward as hard as she could while pushing the rest of the body down, she could tear the flesh apart. Happy with her discovery, Khall ripped each limb off, crunching through the scales, bone, and flesh ravenously before swallowing each whole.

Since her prey had been smaller, Khall was far from full after just its puny arms and legs, so she began ripping into the torso from the exposed flesh at the shoulders and hips of the carcass. Her mouth wasn’t narrow enough to dig into the wounds, but with enough force she smashed the body sufficiently to have the scales near to the area begin to fall from their pulped fleshy home.

Insatiable, Khall continued to smash her face into her prey, her food. One, two, then three full bites of flesh and viscera came out. She felt the blood and gore coat her face, and Khall felt the glory of victory and the joy of a filling belly… before a searing pain appeared along her spine.

With a shriek of pain, Khall wheeled around and saw the creature, its four paws tipped with the glinting light of claws, a rumbling and threatening purr bubbling out its lips as it eyed her prey. The creature didn’t have defensive scales, instead covered with a soft, fuzzy pelt, and Khall screeched her enraged challenge at her assailant. So foolish to begin a fight without any armor!

She rushed forward, mouth agape and front legs thrashing, looking to only make contact. Khall was convinced that if she only hit the foolish attacker once she could slow it enough to fell it. Onward she pushed, following, pursuing. Once, she felt the fur of the idiot attacker catch in her claw, and Khall knew that her victory was imminent. Finally, the beast realized that it was outmatched and began to flee, and Khall, exhausted from the fight, pained by the shallow but bloody claw marks on her back, and too full to want to run, turned to return to her prey. Again, she was victorious! Khall would… go to… the… Divine Summit! Yes, she would go there, after she finished eating, and show everyone how wonderful she was. Then, she strained her eyes to try to see the meal she had left behind.

It was only then that she realized the sneaky beast’s ploy! It had a partner which had stolen away her food! In the distance Khall could see a similarly glowing beast hauling away the corpse of her rightfully slain prey! Indignant, she screamed her challenge, demanded that the detestable thing release her hard-won meal, but it paid her no mind. How dare it! She wanted to pursue, to hunt, to teach the Void-born cowards a lesson!... but she was too tired. With a sad whimper, she watched the terrible creature escape with her prey. Instead, she slunk to an area with loose, warm dirt and, with a sullen, defeated cast to her shoulders, dug a narrow burrow where she could gently lick at her wounds and dream about slaying the wicked, foul, tricky beasts.