As we got to the darkest part of the cave she stopped. She pulled out four candles from a bag. She placed the four candles in the corners of the room. After she finished setting the candles up she pulled some tinder from her pocket and started a fire in her hand. As the fire burned I could smell the scent of burning flesh and the fire turned a crimson blood color. A short while later I could see tendrils of the flame branching off in the direction of the four candles. The tendrils grew faster and faster as time went on. Upon the contact with the candles the flames turned black and I could feel the room become darker.
“Now we wait.” She stated. Then she said “She will decide whether or not to answer my beacon. I do not have enough power to contact her. I only have enough power to send a signal that I wish for her to look at me.”
“Where are we?” I questioned. I then said “I can tell we are no longer in the cave. This place has nothing in it besides us. There is not even a floor here.”
“You are correct mortal. You are no longer in the cave.” Said a voice that rang from all sides. It then continued “Ah I know you. You are Rex Draconis. Fallen heir to the Draconis bloodline. My meeting with you shouldn't have come for another hundred years or so.” She paused for a second. I could feel her attention move to someone else. She then said “Hello Jack. I see today is a day full of early meetings. Did you come here to make your pretending to be my race a reality? No that can't be it. You only gained the power to falsify your race a short time ago.”
“ I humbly asked for this audience Queen of queens.” The goblin queen said from a kneeling bow. “I asked for an audience to inform you of the one who pretends to be of your race without even having the power to properly step outside a cave.”
The voice rang out once more. “I see. How is it that you can stand in the light while pretending to be one of my race. If I am not mistaken the skill you are using only allows you to take on the appearance and weakness of a race. If so you should burn from even the weakest of light and be instantly destroyed because of how weak you are.”
“You must be the Shade queen. If you must know why I am able to stand in the light even while pretending to be one of your race it is that I have raised my resistance to all elements by a lot.” Jack stopped for a moment and started moving his hands through the air in front of him. He then continued “It seems all my resistance to light is gone and I have a small negative in that category. I also seem to be missing half my fire resistance.” He was about to continue his rambling but the Shade queen cut him off.
“Ah that explains why you are able to step into the light. Well as you are capable of standing in the light with all of our weaknesses you have now earned all of our strengths.” A stone appeared in jacks hand. then the Queen began again. “As a male of our race you must slay a dragon in order to gain access to our city. That stone will activate once dipped in the blood of a freshly slain dragon. Once activated you will be able to come to our city anytime you please.” After saying this Jack and the speaker for the goblin queens vanished from my sight. I could feel her attention focus back on me then she said “Now that the formalities and unneeded people are out of the way we can talk about the important things. Such as your plans for taking back control of your castle and reclaiming the ley lines in your land.” as she said this two chairs and a table materialized.
She suddenly appeared in the chair farthest from me. Her skin seemed to be made of obsidian which popped out even more because of her white dress making a stark difference. As I stared at her she motioned for me to sit in the chair opposite her. I then noticed that all the light in this place was coming from her dress.
“It is nice to finally meet you face to face. I see the witch kept her word that she would be able to make you related to your father and mother and not just a inheritor of their power. You have a great destiny ahead of you. As a fellow ruler of a potential allied kingdom you have the right to know my king Draconis. I am Queen Esla ruler of the realm of shadows.” Esla said
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Hello Queen Esla. May I ask how you know so much about my kingdom and my family?” I questioned.
“You grow more like your grandfather every day. Yes I will tell you about how I know so much about you and your business. I guess I will go with the abridged version. I met your great grandfather back when he first claimed the land where your castle sits by slaying the dark dragon which lived in the mountain your castle is carved from. I had just finished winning a war against an ancient species that has no name in this language. We both happened to be after the same thing the dragons life. He didn't want to share the honor of fighting the dragon with me so we fought to see who would get to kill the dragon. Needless to say he won the fight and went off to kill the dragon. He was so impatient that he went to kill it without waiting for his arm to regenerate. After that I used the soul of the dragon to create the realm of shadows.” She paused for a second to see if I was paying attention. She then went on. “That was the first time I came into contact with your family. Then a thousand years later I ran into your great grandfather again. He was in the middle of waging a war against every other creature in the world. I offered him some help and between the two of us we successfully cornered every race in the world. After it was apparent that we were too strong for the any other mortal to come close to so the gods subdued us and forced us to chose death or neutrality. Your great grandfather chose death. His fight against the gods was breathtaking. He managed to kill one of them before finally going down himself. I chose life and was forced to wear this clothing to weaken myself so that I wouldn't seek vengeance and try to destroy the gods. That was when the gods added in this system of measurement so they can keep track of the balance of power between the mortals and stop a repeat of what happened. Then I raised your grandfather with your great grandmother. I have kept tabs on your family ever since then.” she finished with a look of someone reminiscing on fun times.
“Well that explains how you know more about me than I know about me. You asked earlier about my plans for taking back what is mine. Since I am not yet strong enough to do that I plan on gathering allies and an army until I am ready to crush the church into submission and rid the world of whatever god had the idea to send someone to get rid of me and my family.” I said
She laughed and accidently hit the table which then shattered like glass dropped from a balcony. After she stopped laughing she said. “Thats some good resolve. Sadly thats either impossible or nearly impossible. There are only two ways to kill a god. First is the way your great grandfather did. Which is to have a god come to this plane of existence and kill it there. That is impossible for any god that is major god. The second way is to kill every single worshipper of that god. Which is now nearly impossible for most major gods seeing as there are foreigners who worship those gods as well. Sadly you would be against Freya herself. Plus your anger is a little misplaced here. The one you should be angry at is the demon Jabel. He is a weak demon. However he is very smart. He likes to break peace. He never fights himself however he likes to make groups of people that were at peace fight amongst themselves. If you truly wish for revenge you should find out which sect of the church of Freya is responsible for the death of your parents and destroy it.”
After she finished talking she vanished and I found myself in the cave with a note in my hand.
-short chapter not much happening but talking
-just felt like a good point to stop. If you notice any mistakes please tell me. Any questions that may lead to spoilers send into this section