I appeared in my palace bedroom, finding it empty. Trembling, I sat down on the bed, taking some deep breaths. I had survived the large teleport, and seemed no worse for wear. Checking my profile, I noted the MP cost for future reference, then focused on the issue at hand.
Otter looked around wildly, and I calmed him down. “This is my home. Why don’t you stay here? I’ve got to go check on some things.”
Sweeping out of the room, I surprised some guards who stumbled to act before they recognized me and saluted with knifehands to their chests.
“Your Majesty!”
“At ease.” I walked away from the guard, wondering if I should have changed out of Deklan’s armor and into something more regal, but that was not important at the moment. I navigated through the palace halls to the advisor meeting room, hoping I would find the people I was looking for.
There was not as much shock as I walked into the room as I expected, until the people within realized that Atlessoa was also in the room and I was not her in an illusion.
“Pilus?” Seranedra exclaimed in surprise. “How are you here?”
I scooped my wife up into my arms, hugging her tightly. “It’s so good to see you,” I exhaled.
“It’s good to see you too, my love,” she replied, cupping my cheek. “Although I’m not sure how it is that I am.”
“New magic. I’ll tell you about it later.” I looked around the room. Nodel and Morgun were here, as was Atlessoa, but Horg and Rena were likely still at their Guilds. “You’ve seen the sky?”
Nodel nodded. “What does it mean?”
Sighing, I told them what happened in Haklan, what I thought had happened since, and what I was concerned about happening next.
“This… is very bad news, Your Majesty,” Mogrun said with a frown.
“Yeah. I know. I didn’t expect th—no, nevermind. I take responsibility for it. If I had left things alone, the wyvern would still be trapped in the bottom of the dungeon.”
“This still may have happened eventually,” Sera said. “It might have just been a matter of time.”
“Maybe.” I shook my head. “In any case, its release now was a direct result of my actions. We have to prepare to deal with the consequences.”
Unfortunately, the consequences were still largely unknown. I had no idea when the fallout might hit, and how serious it would be. We quickly exhausted what we knew for certain, and soon were talking circles around hypotheticals.
“All right,” I said, standing. “We’re just going to have to wait and see. Put what we’ve discussed so far into action.” I turned, looking at Sera. “Before things get too crazy, I’d like to spend some time with my family.”
* * *
“I’m not sure I see what you like about this nikopi,” Sera said the next morning as I sipped a cup of it over breakfast. “It’s so bitter.”
“Hmm,” I said, turning to one of the palace kitchen staff. “Do we have any quadhorn milk? And syrup?”
Once the server returned, I experimented with doses until I had something that approached a cup of coffee with cream and sugar.
“Here, try this,” I said, offering it to my wife. She looked at me skeptically, then gave it a sip. She paused, appraising the cup.
“That’s not too bad,” she said, taking a second sip.
I grinned, then went back to my simple, high protein breakfast, with my cup of unaltered nikopi. After spending some time with the kids the day before, Sera and I had a proper reunion that night. While some of the passion was from our time apart, I could tell she appreciated the fact that I had leaned out. First thing in the morning I sent word to the palace chefs about a change in menu for me, as well as dropping off the sacks of nikopi with brewing instructions. Now that I was lean again, I did not want to gain all the weight back immediately.
While some of the excitement of my return was tempered by the circumstances and the potential fallout of the events of Haklan, it was still nice to spend time with my family, start handing out souvenirs, and fall back into the rhythms of my palace life.
Once breakfast was over, though, I stood. There was lots to do, and I could not waste too much time. I kissed my wife and kids goodbye and headed to my lab so I could brew some fertilizer potion with my newly acquired dungeon core, and once I had enough prepared for the rest of this season, I disguised myself as Bil and headed for the Guilds.
Walking through the capital was comforting. Little had changed in my season away. There was a slight undercurrent of distress in the people, though; whispers and hushed conversation with glances up at the sky, concern over what the violent changes to the ring forebode.
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The Adventurers Guild was buzzing with activity when I arrived, a hive of speculation and concern over the recent event. I navigated my way through, greeting a few people that knew me as Bil, until I found Horg, who pulled me into his office.
“How are you back already?”Horg asked as he shut the door.
“A… movement spell I developed, of sorts. I came back because of that,” I said, pointing out the window and into the sky. Just like the day before, I gave Horg my account of what happened in Haklan, as well as some of my concerns and speculation.
“Troubling,” Horg muttered, sitting down at his desk and thinking hard.
“The immediate focus will be on maintaining order when the crystal thrown by the explosion hits us. The storm… may be rather violent. The impacts probably won’t be devastating, but they will cause damage and possibly some changes to the terrain.” I was making assumptions, but I had to assume the collisions would likely not be world-ending, extinction-level events like an asteroid impact could be. Blue crystal should largely burn up in the atmosphere, and I figured there was an upper limit to the size of any red crystal that could land on the world as well given the dungeon rankings. “The main thing the Guild should prepare for is the dungeons that will sprout up wherever the red crystal takes root.”
After working through the details with Horg and putting some plans into motion, I parted ways with him and found Rena.
“Back so soon?”
“Seems that way. How’s my alcewing doing?”
Rena glared at me for a moment. “He’s fine,” she finally said, sighing. “I was hoping to transform it before you got back so I could lay a proper claim to him.”
“Still no luck with bounties?”
Rena shook her head. “Between their flight and power, but also their wariness when it comes to traps, no other tamer has had any luck.” She glanced up at me hopefully. “Maybe you could get another? A female, for breeding?”
“I don’t think Sera’s going to let me take off again anytime soon,” I said, launching into another explanation of what happened in Haklan. When I was done, Rena frowned.
“Sounds… complicated. Anything I need to worry about?”
“I’ll let you know when I know. Oh, by the way, I tamed a seadarter while I was in Haklan. You know it?”
Rena pursed her lips, thinking. “Yeah, I think so. Kind of like a rockstalker, but weaker and waterborne. What about it?”
“Why aren’t they more popular? They’re cute.”
“Not… really? But probably because of their transformation. You didn’t transform yours?” I shook my head. Rena ducked into the back of the Tamers Guild and came back out with a bestiary, and started flipping through it. The copies of bestiaries had grown tremendously since I started the practice all those years ago. “Here,” she said, turning it towards me. “They transform into a larger creature that doesn’t move around well on land, so bringing them inland isn’t really worth it to tamers.”
I looked at the sketches and description and saw that the otter-like beast would grow into something more akin to a sea lion. “Ah. Guess I won’t be transforming mine. But, speaking of…” I grinned up at Rena. “Let me tell you about the colossal kraken I fought off the port of Mirut, and the Gold rank meat I saved from it for Pegamus.”
“That was you? I heard about that,” she said, collecting some parchment and ink. “Sketch out what you remember.”
I took the parchment and ink and began doodling. “I actually saw a kraken when I was young, too, so I have some idea of both forms,” I said, then started regaling my friend from Freehold with the tale of my heroic battle. The wyvern fight might have gone off the rails, but at least the kraken fight had let me feel like a proper adventurer.
Once that was finished, Rena and I headed out of the city on tarandback to go to the farm, where Pegamus the alcewing was grazing with the local herd of breeding tarands. Before going over to him, we headed for her on-site cottage, where I handed her the vials of fertilizer for the skillfruit trees for her to store in her secret safe so she could cultivate the skillfruit trees.
With that business sorted, we headed over to Pegamus, and I pulled out some kraken meat from my satchel. I would not be able to feed him in bulk without exposing my inventory to Rena, but I could do that in private somewhere once I had him back under my control. I infused the Gold rank meat and fed it to the Silver rank beast, and Rena grumbled something that was probably treason as I wrestled control over the tamer bond away from her.
“Going to go for a quick flight,” I said, mounting up on the alcewing’s back. Rena shook her head and made a shooing motion, and I laughed as Pegamus kicked off the ground and took to the skies.
I whooped with delight as we soared away from the farm, heading westward following the mountain range in order to find some privacy so I could feed the alcewing more of the colossal kraken. After he ate his fill, he laid down to nap and digest, and I fiddled with a few experiments from my inventory as he rested.
Rena had trained him well in a short time, and I could only imagine how much Tamers Guild resources she poured into the beast in my absence to get him to grow so much in such a short period of time. He would still need time in order to eat enough to max out, so when he awoke I mounted him again and we flew back to the palace’s stables.
A few days later, he was ready, and I flew him back to the farm for the big event. I removed his saddle, and pulled out a magic crystal from my pocket, opening my hand to the beast. Pegamus took the catalyst from my palm, and with a gulp, it was gone.
The light of evolution was practically blinding as the flying moose began to grow and change. As his new form settled, he was only about twice as large, but he was sleek and stunning. His coat had become white, and his wings had split into a pair of doubled wings that stretched twice as long as his old ones, presumably enough to give him the lift his larger form would require for flight. His snout had reshaped slightly into something much more handsome and regal, and his tail had grown out like a horse, the long strands of white turning yellow at the ends, like the tips of the feathers of his new dual wings. His rack of antlers had also grown, a massive crown that had become semi-transparent, almost like glass or ice.
Given that he was now called a shining alcewing, I wondered if they would one day be able to light up.
“I’m going to need to get a new saddle made,” I muttered as Rena squealed in delight, looking over the evolved beast with glee.