The first thing Sekairoshin felt as he slowly regained his senses was the dull ache around the centre of his torso. At first his thoughts were foggy and muddled but as the moments stretched on his thoughts became clearer and he recalled the day before when an army had tried to kill him. His eyes shot open in a panic and his hands shot towards where the bolt of curse magic had shot through him, feeling around where the wound was, he felt a soft fabric and, upon glancing down, noticed he was wearing a robe of black that was dotted very generously with purple stars that almost seemed to blink in and out of existence. Sekairoshin glanced around the location he had woken up in. He had vague memories of crashing onto the peak and turning human but beyond the dim images he had seen as his vision darkened, now he could see that the peak was covered in blue and red flowers but none of that explained how he had survived what he considered a mortal wound, that was until his eyes landed on the human who was sitting on the edge of the plateau watching the sun rise. Sekairoshin watched him as he sat quietly, a staff lying next to him as the rays of the sun climbed into the sky, it was only when some pollen from one of the flowers caused him to sneeze that the human turned around with a look of surprise on his face. The human grabbed his staff and slowly stood up before walking over to him.
“Beautiful isn’t it.” The human said as he looked back towards the sunrise.
Sekairoshin had to admit that watching the sun rise for this height was somewhat beautiful, but all he managed to get out was
“W-who are you?”
“Oh, right, introductions.” The human thought for a bit. “I am known as Ghost, I am human, and I’m currently looking for a location to finish a quest.”
“A quest?” Sekairoshin asked sounding sceptical
“Yep, but I won’t tell you anything till you introduce yourself.”
“Uh, um.” Sekairoshin was confused. Mainly due to the fact the first human he had talked to seemed genuinely friendly, unlike those who had hunted him, and also because he knew he should be dead, and yet somehow he was alive. Something that also made him wary of the human named Ghost was that his mother had told him and his clutch was that humans often had ulterior motives when dealing with those more powerful than them.
“How about we start with your name then.” Ghost said as he sat on the snow a few feet in front him
“Uh, Sekairoshin,”
“Sekairoshin huh, could I call you Kairo instead?”
“S-sure.”
Ghost sighed slightly. “Ask your questions, I don’t think I’m going to get anything else out of you.”
Sekairoshin started at the human for a bit as he tried to get his head around what was happening. First he thought he had died, then he though the human was going to demand something of him, and now he was simply letting him ask questions.
“O-ok, um, w-what is it you want?” He finally settled on
“I want many things, but you’ll have to be more specific.” Ghost said
“Uh, what is it you want in, um, this place?”
“In this place? The flowers.”
“Flowers?” Sekairoshin asked confused
“Yes.” Ghost reached around to grab something but upon seeing nothing there he sighed and turned back. “Well, from what I remember, the red blossoms are good for potions related to fire, the blue ones to strength and the white ones to healing.”
“Huh?”
“That’s all I can remember unfortunately, I’ve had a few rather intense weeks.”
“Oh,” sekairoshin paused. “U-m, do, do you want your robe back?”
“What? No No no, keep it on.” Ghost seemed concerned about that question. “It’s not even mine anyway, and I doubt the bastard it belonged to will miss it.”
“You stole it?” Sekairoshins eyes went wide as he looked at the human
“No, of course not, I just, borrowed it with no return date.” Ghost cocked his head slightly to the side. “Besides, why are you concerned about me stealing, don’t dragons have to steal to grow their hoards?”
“You’re not entirely wrong.” Sekairoshin muttered. “But, but, often our hoards are grown from tributes gone to us.”
There was a lull in the conversation as both fell into a sort of comfortable but also contemplative silence.
“Kairo?” Ghost asked after a while
“Yea?”
“Do you know of any subspace distortions within these mountains?”
“What’s a subspace distortion?”
“Oh, um, a special disruption, or some sort of place where reality seems to have shifted? I think the place is also meant to be filled with death.”
Sekairoshins eyes opened wide “I know the place.” He said with fear entering his voice. “Why do you want to go there? Even the greatest of our kind never enter for fear of the miasma that covers the place.”
Ghost narrowed his eyes. “How old are you?”
“W-why?” Sekairoshin stuttered
“Because your actions seem like those of someone who has been sheltered from civilisation, but you possess Knowledge beyond what your appearance suggests.”
“That’s a bit of a rude way to tell me your reasoning,” sekairoshin muttered.
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“I’m sorry, that, happens from time to time.” Jessie said There was a pause before sekairoshin muttered. “I’m 19.”
“Huh” was all Ghost said before he fell back into silence. But was broken slightly later by sekairoshin
“Why can I feel a draconic presence from you?”
But the only response he got was more silence and a pained look that flashed across Ghosts face for a moment. It was a bit later that Ghost finally spoke up.
“Do you think you could take me to the special distribution?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know, you don’t really have an obligation to help me, you could just fly off to the south.” Ghost paused. “If you don’t want to take me could you at least point me in the direction?”
“I owe you my life, but.” After a long pause sekairoshin continued. “If I take you there will you teach me the ways of the people who live beyond the mountains?”
“I’m not much of a teacher, but, I can try my best.”
***
It took about an hour of flying east for Jessie and his new acquaintance to arrive in the area of the spatial distortion. The foreboding feeling that Jessie felt as they started to approach the area soon turned into a feeling that death was right around the corner, and it continued to grow in intensity eventually getting to the point that Kairo could fly straight and had to land, leaving Jessie to continue on foot. Kairo refused to follow instead the blue dragon, who was about 25 metres long, decided to curl up and wait for Jessie to return.
The first look jessie got of the spatial distortion was a massive crack that loomed up over the peak in front of him, the higher up the peak the larger the crack became and the more he saw till he was standing on top of the peak looking down and a basin. The basin seemed to be covered in nothing but black grass and snow, dead trees littered the landscape and thousands of suits of rusty armour and skeletal corpses dotted the area, but what drew the eye the most was the massive fracture in reality, that looked like a mirror had been smashed, through the fracture Jessie could see a landscape of death, skeletal creatures large and small wandered aimlessly and piles of rusty armour could be seen lying strew everywhere. The sky beyond the fracture was a crimson red casting an eerie glow over the remnants of the battlefield. Jessie’s gaze returned to the basin as he noticed bunches of black flowers dotted the landscape, their many different forms indicating that there was more than one type of flower. As he continued to scan the basin he noticed several patches of flowers that seemed to look like the exact opposite of the tulips of life he had harvested before his encounter with Kairo. As he approached the edges of the black grass Jessie bent down to run his hand over it, the moment his bare fingers came into contact with the grass they began to tingle and the colour in them began to fade, quickly pulling his hand away and watching the colour return Jessie tentatively placed his foot on the grass, but the expected tingle didn’t come and it seemed that the shoes he was wearing which, like the rest of his current clothes, were divine ranked, because what else would you expect to find in a place where gods lived, blocked the effects of the miasm. Carefully, so as not to either accidentally touch the plant life with his bare skin or wake what he assumed was an army of undead skeletons that seemed intent at the moment, Jessie began to walk towards the first group of flowers that resemble the tulips of life. Upon inspecting the first group Jessie was kind of disappointed.
‘Flower of undeath.’
‘Tulip of death.’
Of the 7 flowers in the group only one of them was a tulip of death, the rest a flower of undeath and it seemed like the system wasn’t interested in giving him a description of either of them, a precaution Jessie thought was probably a wise idea. After letting the sleeve of his robe, one he had not borrowed but stolen from Fate, Jessie picked and stored all 7 of the flowers, 6 of undeath and one of death. The pattern Jessie noticed after picking his third patch of 7 flowers was that a tulip of death, which he assumed was a weak potency due to it being on the outermost outskirts of the plains of sorrow, was that for every group of 6 flowers of undeath, 1 tulip of death would be present, unfortunately by the time Keesie had picked the fifth and final tulip of death, he realise he had travelled about half way towards the fracture.turning around Jessie began to walk back towards where he had parted for Kairo, however he was about 500 metres from the lip of the basin when his foot landed on a dagger that had been hidden in the black snow, as he stood on it his foot slipped and Jessie stumbled sending the dagger flying backwards, bouncing off a few suits of armour on its way towards the bottom. As he followed the path of the dagger as it bounced off more armour he nearly missed the clank of metal coming from his left, jerking his head around he noticed one of the suits staggering to their feet and heading in his direction, swinging his staff toward its head Nesise knocked it down towards the bottom of the basin before turning around and sprinting up toward the top with the sound of more skeletal warriors rising from their slumber behind him. He tried to avoid any skeletons in front of him, but any he couldn’t he tried to knock back into the basin, unfortunately with the way he was positioned and his panic of getting out of the basin he didn’t always manage it on his first swing, and by the time he had gotten to the top of the peak he had originally looked down at the basin from, he was covered in minor wounds that weren’t fatal but still hurt, a glance behind him showed that his mistake is slipping on the dagger had woken thousands of skeletons who were all stumbling towards him. Turning back around he sprinted as fast as he could back towards the dragon, shouting when he was within hearing range.
“KAIRO, GET READY TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
Jessie wasn’t well versed in reading the expressions of dragons, but what he assumed was a look of confusion passed over Kairo's draconic face which turned to horror as the first of the skeletons passed the peak behind Jessie was somewhat comical to look at. When Jessie was close enough he jumped and grabbed one of the horns on Kairos head before somehow swinging himself onto the back of Kairos neck.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?” Kairo roared at Jessie as he beat his massive wings and rose into the sky “HOLD ON!”
As Kairo banked hard left and began to fly back the way they had come, Jessie managed to get a good look at the massive army of skeletons that had been pursuing him, they all seemed to be looking up at him and Kairo for a moment before they all turned and headed back to the basin.
A sudden burst of speed knocked Jessie to the base of Kairos neck before he managed to get a firm hold on one of his scales. When he next looked up he saw Kairo leering back at him.
“You didn’t answer.” He grumbled, his voice rumbling throughout his whole body. “What did you do?”
Jessie looked away from Kairos eye in embarrassment before muttering
“I slipped.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I slipped.” Jessie muttered a bit louder
“Once more please, I think my hearing is off.”
“I SLIPPED ON A DAGGER OKAY.”
“You slipped on a dagger after almost making a perfect stealth run into an area full of undead?”
“YES! NOW SHUT UP AND FLY.”
The burst of laughter that Kairo had been trying to hold in finally slipped free and for the next few minutes all Jessie could hear was the rumbling laugh of a dragon.
It was about midday why the two of them returned to the peak where Kairo had newly died of his wounds. After Jessie had thrown the black robe for Death to the now human Kairo he walked to the southern side of the plateau to try and locate the village where he so desperately wanted to return to. After a while of staring out at the empire of the Star Dragons Rest, Kairo joined him on the edge of the plateau.
“Looking for something?”
“You’ve gotten more comfortable talking to me.” Jessie said as he glanced sideways at him, before a slight sigh left his mouth. “There should be a village near this mountain range.”
“That one?” Kairo asked as he pointed to a small dot that appeared in the forest.
“Likely.” Jessie said as he looked in the direction Kairo had pointed. “Do dragons have enhanced eyesight?”
“Compared to humans, yes, shall we fly there?”
“No, that would cause an unwanted commotion, just fly to the base of the mountain range, we’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“But that will take days.” Kairo complained.
“Indeed. But you wanted to learn our ways and we can’t fly.”