by G. Akella
"Absolutely!" I said, then tried to rise, but the woman held me back by grabbing at my sleeve.
"Hold up," she said with irony in her voice. "I know this one dar who claims to have never broken a promise, and it so happens he'd promised to tell me about a certain someone he'd managed to marry. And I've been waiting patiently for what I bet is quite the captivating story!"
"There's no time," I gestured at the open gates of the temple. "Some other time..."
"We've got at least another hour! The Scarlet Salamander Elixir takes a long while to prepare. And besides, have you no shame?!" the demoness frowned. "Here I am, pouring out my soul before you, and this is what you give me in return?" she peered into my eyes. "So, spill it! Who is she?!"
"Ahriman's daughter," I sighed, sitting back down on the steps.
"Do you mean to tell me that you have wed Jaelitte dar Rakata? The Elder Demon's own daughter..."
Strangely, she didn't sound all that shocked to me.
"Does Ahriman have some other daughter?"
"And what were you discussing with her mother back there on top of the tower—the guest list for the wedding?" Vaessa pressed on, countering my question with one of her own.
"Exactly. And we'd decided to take the undead about the storm the citadel off the list," I chuckled and reached for the flask again. How could anyone expect me to get through this without cognac?!
I kept the story short and to the point, without delving into unnecessary details and further omitting that our initial encounter had begun with a domestic quarrel of sorts. There was no point in sharing that part: I didn't view my victory as a merit of any kind, and admitting that my wife had chosen me only because she had no other option wasn't exactly healthy for my male pride. I knew the truth of our relationship and its history, and that was quite enough.
After I finished speaking, Vaessa kept silent for a while, contemplating a small split on a step of the staircase. Eventually she sighed and said in a soft voice:
"Poor girl..."
"Yeah, she's had a rough stretch of—" I echoed.
"I don't mean that," the magus interrupted me, then added, tinging her voice with sorrow. "All those troubles are behind her, yes. But look at the husband she got stuck with..."
"What's that?!" I cried out, nearly speechless with indignation.
"You've never going to be satisfied, dar. You'll always be running off somewhere! Whereas every woman dreams of a peaceful life..."
"This woman happens to be an Elder Demoness! And do you seriously think that I enjoy all this running around? Once I finish off my to-do-list, I'll—"
"You'll what?" Vaessa smiled. "As for gods and Elder Demons, did you ever stop to think why it is that my Mistress, your mother-in-law, or any deity for that matter, look as good as they do? Could it have something to do with the fact that they're practically all-powerful?"
"Actually, Kirana—" I tried to object.
"Don't confuse their combat form with their normal appearance!" Vaessa didn't let me finish. "Look, they are women first and foremost, and goddesses second! As for you, prince, I know about your sister and your human friend, the one you trust wholeheartedly, but it's all an excuse! A week or two after rescuing them, you'll be itching to get back into action. It took you all of three days after our grand victory to go rushing off to Rualt, where you wasted no time getting into the thick of it. Lord Yllial's Slayer! Hart!" Rising to her feet, Vaessa gave a stretch, then added with reproach in her voice. "And you could have told your friends, you know."
"I was going to tell you..." I said sheepishly.
Indeed, it was no easy feat to keep something from the priestess of the Mistress of Death. The blood of the White Dragon may have concealed all my achievements, but keeping secrets while bearing marks of certain Great Essences favoring me was a whole other kettle of fish.
"Of course you're going to tell me!" the magus smiled. "But later—the mages are wrapping up," she gestured at the alchemists packing up their portable labs. "One last thing. If I were your wife, I'd chain you to the marriage bed for a century or so..." She snorted, caressing the muzzle of her pet dragon that ran up to her, then started toward the gathering point.
Nothing is ever easy, I thought with irritation, watching her go, and tried to picture myself relaxing in a lounge chair on the beach of some tropical island...
It appears that you have some intelligent women in your entourage, my wife's contemplative voice sounded in my head, shattering the illusion.
A bit too intelligent for my liking, I grumbled.
Still, I may consider her recommendation, Jaelitte added.
Hey, now! In our family, decisions of that magnitude are only taken with the husband's explicit consent!
As you say, dear, my spouse giggled before "signing off."
Was I hallucinating? Or was her voice dripping with irony?
***
Truthfully, I wasn't all that scared of dragons. What was there to be scared of, really? According to your average Earthling, a dragon was either the embodiment of wisdom or absolute evil. In the former case, no way would a sagely dragon devour sentient beings! He'd much prefer to play a game of riddles, chess or even poker. Besides, if he did devour a sentient being, the next day he might have to face a thousand sentients instead, only this time they'd bring not chessboards and card decks, but bows and crossbows. Worse yet, it might be just one guy in shiny plate, also sentient but kind of slow, and if surviving arrows and bolts was still possible, a heroic knight would mean certain death for the big lizard. At least as far as any self-respecting fairy tale was concerned. As for the second time of dragon, the wicked villainous one, they were also invariably dumb as nails, stealing princesses and guzzling everything that moved. And if something wasn't moving, they'd shake it and then guzzle it. As a kid, I never could understand what a wicked dragon would want with a living princess. Where exactly would she live in the monster's lair? What would be eat? Most importantly, how would a knight with a dummy sword—for that was exactly what ancients swords looked like in museum exhibits—manage to slice the dragon's head clean off with a single swing?! We're talking about bones and tendons and flesh that amounted to three-four feet in diameter! And the dragon wasn't exactly putting its head down on an execution block, either! None of my parents' explanations never passed muster with me, to say nothing of the excuse that fairy tales were a magical domain where anything was possible. But I digress. The point was that in all the books and movies I'd digested throughout my childhood and young adulthood, the good—be it a valiant knight with a sword or a disheveled hillbilly with a crossbow—would always triumph over the evil personified by the dragon. This was why the average Earthling wasn't scared of dragons, and neither was I. At least that was my line of thinking half a minute ago...
The temple in Cathella was virtually identical to the one in which I'd had a chat with Syrat, with the only difference being the absence of the end wall. Strangely, there were no signs of destruction anywhere, so either the designers had simply forgotten to put a wall there, or this was part of the temple's design. Our party passed by the grim-looking marble statues, rounded the rectangular altar, and came out a round platform that resembled a helipad. And then...
"Double semicircle! By the numbers! Titan bolts! Mages, put up a screen!" the barking commands came courtesy of Kan, walking directly behind me.
I froze, unable to utter a word, standing there and admiring these creatures in all their terrible glory... Sure, I'd imagined something like this, but imagining and seeing it live with your own eyes... One of the dragons, named Vala'ael, was sleeping; the other one was fully awake, its head hovering around the level of a fourth floor window of an old five-story building—the kind I'd lived in back in the now-distant Moscow. I couldn't quite make out the details of the sleeping dragon, but Velargass... Every inch of her body was covered with bone plates; her wings were enormous and slightly parted; her wedge-shaped head was crowned with horns that curved back elegantly, in betw
een which rippled a bone crest. In a way, she looked like the latest Bugatti model—not a single redundant element, but only pure, awe-inducing power.
We were some sixty-seventy yards from the dragons. Both of them were level 580, their HP concealed for some reason, but if our fight with Nerghall was any indication, each had to have at least four billion each. And their attitude toward us? Unfriendly...
"Saverus, with the others! Titan's Spear at the one on the right!"
"Stop!" I roared, realizing what was about to happen. Then I turned around, sized up the foxes who were preparing for battle, and said in a calmer tone of voice:
"They won't hurt us. And I need to speak with them." Seeing the misgivings in the commander's eyes, I added:
"They will only speak with me. I told you that already."
And indeed, even before our campaign I had fessed up to Kan my true identity and the story of my arrival here. Shockingly, he didn't seem at all shocked by it, but spent the better part of the next three hours interrogating me about the game's combat mechanics and rules for completing dungeons. The upshot of our talk was that he concluded that his was the role of a tank, as was Lars' before him. His shield was identical to mine, and with his million and a half HP, absence of inertia and astronomical damage output, this was a tank dreams were made of. I had accepted Kan without modifying his stats in any way, and his damage output to mobs and bosses hadn't changed! Which meant that, no matter how smart the local NPCs would get, he should hold their aggro in perpetuity. The only downside was that he stood to sustain a hell of a lot more damage in return, but there wasn't anything I could do about that—aside from hoping that the combination of his shield and Raena's company of healers wouldn't let him down.
"We are ready, prince," the commander said sternly. "Should anything happen..."
"Should anything happen, I have the shield of the Goddess of Justice," I nodded, then spun on my heels and started toward the dragons.
Two enormous beasts, each more than sixty feet in length. Where had all those heroic knights found the courage to even get close to something like this?! Assuming all of their bodies' natural reflexes functioned normally... Ugh, what was it with these tangential thoughts of mine? And how was it that two raid bosses were hanging out together, in the same place?! I kept walking, each step resounding in the silence hanging over the platform like the echo of a great bell.
Fifty yards...
Forty...
At unfriendly, they shouldn't attack me... According to the rules of old, at least, though much had changed over the recent months. Either way, two dragons on a single platform was unheard of! And even if they didn't harm me initially, how long before I did or said something that would turn them hostile?
Thirty yards...
Velargass slowly turned her head my way. The color of her eyes—I had never encountered anything like it...
Twenty yards...
Why have you come, Cursed One? The mental power of the female voice that sounded in my head reminded me of Ahriman's Aura of Might, enveloping me like a blanket, stripping me of my will. A wave of cold fury rose up from deep inside me, washing away the panic stirring in the edges of my mind... and suddenly vanished. I stopped and raised my head, peering calmly into the dragon's unblinking eyes. The vertical eyelid, serpentine in shape, with an iris the color of honey... It looked so unbearably lovely in the twilight that I couldn't help but smile.
What made you think I was cursed? I asked mentally, without averting my eyes.
It dawned on me that I'd said something utterly stupid not two heartbeats after. Picture an Asian man walking into a bookstore owned by someone who bears no particular love for Asians. So, the shopkeeper asks the visitor as to the purpose of his visit, making sure to mention the man's ethnicity. To which the man responds, "Why am I Asian?" The answer is foolish on two fronts. Firstly, it's impolite to answer a question with a question. And secondly, I couldn't well expect a dragon who was already unfriendly to me to start explaining in full detail her reasons for deeming me cursed! All those thoughts had raced through my mind in span of my third heartbeat. Had I grown daft all of a sudden? Or was this the influence of the dragon's voice?
Thankfully, Velargass turned out to be smarter than the shopkeeper from my reverie.
Magic... The one that had slaughtered the citizens and blocked the way to the citadel... The voice rustled in my head. I can hear its echoes in you...
What the hell was she talking about? What was it inside me that was so magical? The true blood? The White Dragon's blood?
I thought it was you who had destroyed the city and its inhabitants... I said, upon bringing my thoughts in order.
No... There were notes of sorrow in Velargass' voice. Why would we kill our own lower ones? We have merely spared them their suffering.
The dragon lowered her head, putting her eyes on the same level with mine.
Why have you come here, Cursed One? She repeated her question.
I pulled off my right gauntlet, suppressed the imbecilic desire to take a step forward and touch my interlocutor's muzzle with my bare hand, produced the first key fragment and presented it to Velargass.
For this, I nodded at the stone cradled in my palm. There's another one just like it somewhere around here. Together they'll combine into a key that will unlock a path to another plane of reality.
A moonstone... Strange intonations stole into the dragon's voice. Yes... It fell in between realms fourteen aeons ago, along with some other objects belonging to the Elders from the world whence you came. It happened in the year of the Great War.
By "Elders" I reckoned she meant gods. As for aeons, centuries, perhaps? Was she referring to Velial's invasion? Hey, at least she wasn't speaking Chinese. How many Chinese could she be able to gobble up in one go? I wondered. What about Russians? Probably more Chinese than Russians... Ugh, what in Hart's name was I going on about again?! Flushing the idiotic thoughts from my mind in a fit of rage, I clenched my teeth and took a deep breath to calm down, then checked again to ensure there wasn't some kind of debuff on me, and finally looked back into the dragon's eyes.
"Where can I find this moonstone?" I asked out loud, letting my words rend the silence enveloping the platform like a burst of gunfire.
I didn't care if I sounded insolent. I had to bring this conversation to a close or risk losing control of my own mind, my high mental resistance notwithstanding. Remaining lucid was already getting noticeably difficult...
The dragon didn't seem to react to the sound of my voice. The question, however... The majestic creature raised her head slowly, peering into my eyes from above.
Are you ready to traverse the underside of this realm, Cursed One? she whispered insinuatingly. It is, after all, the only way to enter the Hall of the Ancient Kings!
"The underside of the realm?"
The magic in your blood will allow you to embark on the Path, she continued, ignoring my question. But it will not help you complete it. Velargass exhaled loudly, lowering her head once more. You are not a lower one, however, for you are not affected by my voice. And though the magic of your Elder has altered the underside, you may yet succeed in traversing it to the end...
The timbre in the dragon's voice had changed, and I could hear notes of... was it hope?!
I immediately felt my spirits sink. Hart! Of course, why would I expect this stretch to be easy? I shouldn't be surprised at all, in fact. Perhaps one day Arkon would change so fundamentally than most of these damned quests would finally vanish from the realm? Oh, but a demon could dream...
I drew a heavy sigh, shifted my gaze to the other dragon who hadn't bothered to so much as open one eye through this entire conversation, and said:
"Yes, I am ready! But I ask that you tell me about the world's underside and this Hall of the Ancient Kings."
Attention! You have garnered the attention of a higher being. Velargass, the Great Dragon of Pangea, is intrigued by you.
Change of terms for the quest:
Fragment Two of the Celestial Seal.
You've accessed the quest: Fragment Two of the Celestial Seal I.
Quest type: unique.
Listen to the story of Velargass, the Great Dragon of Pangea.
Reward: experience.
So, the dragon's voice was imbued with magic that appeared to turn sentients into blathering idiots? Or did it just affect me in such a way? At any rate, my mental fog clearly completely after the bump in reputation, as though someone had opened a window in my head, letting the increased wind blow all the stupid out of it. Hmm, I thought, reading the conditions of yet another quest. The Great Dragon of Pangea? Then what is she doing here, along with her pal? Oh well, I suppose I'm about to find out.
I accepted the quest and braced myself, expecting another vision that typically followed in similar circumstances. Thankfully, it didn't happen this time.
Lisssten... Velargass' voice changed again, now sounding like the hissing of a giant serpent. I reckoned that with her change in attitude toward me, the negative component had gone from her voice, which now sounded exactly as it should. Of course, this was only the second dragon I'd ever communicated with, so it was too early to draw any conclusions.
The dragon spoke for a little over quarter of an hour. In the star-studded sky, the rim of the first moon was becoming gradually eclipsed by the second. The wind had calmed, and I just stood there, listening and trying to understand. Understanding wasn't easy, but I still couldn't bring myself to ask questions. Reputation was a funny thing—it could fall just as quickly as it was gained. And besides, interrupting your interlocutor wasn't classy, especially when said interlocutor was a sixty-foot-tall lady dragon.
From what I did understand, it appeared that our worlds had collided three thousand years ago, when the lasso born from the blood of hundreds of thousands of sentients triggered a chain of cataclysms that resulted in a storm in the Dark Ocean. The storm, in turn, led to the collision between Pangea and the Land of Dragons, which were part of the Karn mainland at the time. I couldn't begin to imagine those processes, and I wasn't at all convinced that I'd understood all of Velargass' speech, but I hoped that I'd at least grasped the gist of it. As for the lasso, I even had an inkling just who it was that had created it three thousand years ago. But anyway. After all those epochal developments, the Pangeans who had been cast away to Karn by a whim of fate grabbed all their stuff and returned to their historical homeland, leaving only the temples that they obviously couldn't bring along (though I doubted that Celphata minded). This left Cathella and its environs something of a borderland between the two worlds. And since it used to be part of Pangea, its inhabitants never left. Just the opposite, Vala'ael and Velargass—who seemed to be something like demigods in their world—came here to bolster its defenses.