Edge of Chaos

by Des Pensable

  ‘This is the body form of an Astarian. It is made of Astarian rock. It is very heavy but very robust. Since your spirit is small in your body you may not be able to grow very large. Do you still wish to have a body like this?’

  ‘It looks a bit rough and featureless. Have you seen yourself in a mirror.’ and she created an illusory mirror in front of him.

  ‘It is a bit crude isn’t it.’ he agreed and began experimenting. She suggested various changes and finally agreed that was much better.

  ‘Now you look like my dream Astarian.’ she chuckled then ‘Okay lets go and make me a body. Hold my hand and we’ll teleport there.’

  ‘How can you teleport out of here when I can’t?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve been around for a lot longer than you and picked up a few tricks.’ she laughed and they appeared in the area where he had experimented with his new body.

  She looked at him seriously.

  ‘I’m scared. I have never trusted anyone before but I trust you. I trust you not only with my spirit and my body but with all of the future of our kind. I wish to be with you and fight with you to make our kind known and respected throughout the worlds. I wish to be one with you and Astaria.’ And she lay prone on the ground and closed her eyes.

  He put Glammer in a state of hypnosis and was tempted to look around a little. She had a few memories locked but otherwise most were free. She had a divinity seed but he didn’t know which one. He unlocked his spirit from his own body and used it to fill a second body shape next him. He then moved her spirit into the new rock body but found that it only filled half of it so he reduced the size of her body accordingly. He left a little of her spirit in her old body sealed off her new body and woke her up.

  ‘It feels strange.’ she said using mind speak.

  ‘I can put you back into your old body if you like but all of your mind and memories are now consolidated as a single unit. You cannot be unmade into a hundred parts. You are now like me, a true half dragon.’

  ‘I have wanted my own body for as long as I can remember.’ and she created an illusory mirror and began modifying her shape to be what she had imagined it to be in her dreams.

  ‘It’s not as big as I imagined but I think I can fix that,’ and she began singing and she started to grow and grow and grow until she was about twice the size of a Newman then shrank back to his size.

  ‘How did you do that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s the growth song. It’s a druid song but instead of using divine magic I’ve modified it to use our magic. It was in my divinity seed. I’ve found quite a few druid songs there. They’ve been quite useful in managing my flock of mothra clones. Will you change to your Newman shape. I want to see what you looked like when you grew up.’

  He changed to his Rob shape and she changed to an attractive Newman female shape very similar in appearance to her Glammer body but with less Elendari look about it.

  ‘This was me when I grew up.’ And she walked over and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

  ‘Thank you. You have fulfilled all my wishes.’ then she knelt down and pledged herself to him as a friend, a partner and servant for life.

  He helped her up and hugged into her body and replied ‘You have saved my life, protected me and helped me to get where I am now. If I have fulfilled some of your wishes then it is out of gratitude for what you have done for me. You owe me no allegiance but I do want you as a friend and will honour you as a partner.’ And he kissed her back.

  ‘Let’s try it Astarian style’ she grinned and changed to her new Astarian body form and he did too. They clung together for a little while until he said

  ‘It doesn’t do much for me. I think that I’ve been conditioned to only feel passionate as a Newman.’ And changed back to his Newman form.

  ‘Me too.’ she replied and looked at him lustily in her naked Newman form. Suddenly they were naked in a mind arena and she was so passionate he just melted. Minutes later they left the arena with a new very intimate understanding of each other.

  ‘Wow!’ He thought. ‘Wow!’

  ‘May I call you Tain, like the others?’ she asked and he agreed.

  ‘Okay Tain, my love, then let’s build our army!’ and they set about replicating the methods that he had used to create her body.

  Each spirit wishing to be a new Astarian was asked to swear its allegiance to Aquitain and Astaria before being given a new rock body and an explanation as to how it worked. Many found it difficult to walk or see or hear and each needed attention and practice.

  Eventually he got a message from Granddad that they were back and he returned to the control room, checked the control panel to see whether there were any changes and teleported to the gate and opened it for them to enter, closed it and transported the to the control room.

  ‘You look different. More solid and substantial.’ said Miranlla. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Hug me.’ he replied and she did.

  ‘You feel like you’re made of rock.’

  ‘I am. I’m made of Astaria and Glammer and I have just created an army of Astarians. She is down the bottom of Astaria helping them acclimatize to their new bodies. It could take a while as many haven’t had a body for years. Moments later Glammer stepped out of the wall shaped in her naked Newman form. She looked Miranlla in the eyes and said ‘Hello Miranlla, I am now an Astarian. Tain has given me a body. Do you like it?’

  Miranlla looked at Aquitain with eyes coloured with jealousy and made the sign to create a mind link.

  He created the link and said two words. ‘Trust me.’ Then asked Glammer politely to show her the new Astarian half dragon body he had made her.

  ‘Glammer discovered that she can shape shift to her Newman form like I can. It’s more convenient sometimes.’

  ‘I’ll just bet it is.’ said Miranlla wondering what Aquitain was up to. ‘Why don’t you go back and play with our new troopers, Glammer.’

  ‘Okay.’ said Glammer pleasantly and left.

  ‘What are your intensions with her.’ asked Miranlla calmly.

  ‘Agents of Chaos are expected to have massive egos and massive appetites for pleasure. I thought that I could wear you and Gizel out so I’d like your approval to add her to our family.’

  ‘You want more weird sex after all the trouble you’ve caused with that bloody little person witch?’

  ‘Why did you want me to take on Gizel as no 2. It wasn’t because she was your half-sister was it?’

  ‘Well no. It was because I was worried about me becoming a mad storm and I wanted someone to look after you and Tigerlilly. She’s also really good at history and making alliances and loves you.’

  ‘So you did it because you love me and because she has expert knowledge that we haven’t got that would be useful for our plans. Right?’

  ‘Glammer has expert knowledge of our enemies. She’s magically powerful. She has saved my life on a couple of occasions and needs to be loved and to be honest I really like her a lot. Four of us would be more formidable than three.’

  ‘Let me think about it.’ replied Miranlla.

  Granddad was watching Aquitain and Miranlla facial expressions and quickly stepped in when he guessed that they had finished their private discussion about Glammer.

  ‘We’ve made some progress with the Yith Lord Asaba at Argenta.’

  ‘Good. Tell me about it.’ replies Aquitain.

  ‘Lord Asaba stated that he has nothing to do with the faction of Yith that has attacked Astaria. He said that they had no official permission to do so. Their orders were to wait and watch. As such we have the freedom to eject them without any repercussions.’

  ‘Good that’s what I have been waiting for. Let’s make an example of this dragon so that everyone knows we mean business.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Miranlla suddenly alarmed.

  ‘I’m going down there to fight it and you are going to give it the killing blow. We’ll need Granddad’s help to confuse it and counte
r any nasty spells.

  ‘Are you serious!’ said Granddad. ‘I know that you’ve grown in power but this dragon is a serious threat.’

  ‘So are we granddad. We are a serious threat to it and it doesn’t realize that yet.’ Aquitain replied as he retrieved Alpha from its hiding place.

  ‘Do you know what this is? It’s a dragon trap. If it could catch Aquiveritas then it can catch Adonis.’

  ‘Hello Raptor can you hear me. Have you calmed down a bit. I’m going to give you a chance to get out of there. You were trapped by a dragon spirit pulling you into the dragon trap that you are in. I’m here in Astaria and I’ve got an angry dragon here that wants to take over the place. I think that you can guess what sort of problem that will cause with Granite and various gods coming here and poking around.

  ‘If I get its spirit close enough to the trap and you pull and I push we should be able to get you out and it in. After that you can try and kill me if you still want to. You may not get another chance this good for a long time.’

  ‘I agree.’ replied Raptor a few seconds later.

  Aquitain recalled Glammer and told her the plan.

  ‘Good. It’s time I proved my worth to you all, especially you Miranlla.’

  ‘I know this dragon. I have seen him fight. He will call on his mother the Goddess Lithgala to give him divine protection on his body. That will make him immune to almost any magic and most physical attacks. However, he has a weak spot that few think of. He is alive and as such must eat to survive. He has a mouth and a hole at the other end.’

  ‘Tain, if you can get your spirit into him by either entrance you should be able to push his spirit out the other.’

  ‘You have got to be joking.’ said Miranlla. ‘You want me to either hover near his mouth or his anus ready to catch his spirit.’

  Granddad couldn’t help but grin. ‘Sounds like a plan.’ he said.

  ‘Have you a better idea, Miranlla?’ asked Glammer.

  ‘No. I guess it might work.’ she replied meekly. ‘His mother Lithgala will carry on a treat and we’ve already upset her today.’

  ‘That’s good.’ said Aquitain. ‘We want to make it known that you just can’t come in here and do whatever you want.’

  ‘If she really puts on a turn we’ll offer to sell him back to her for a good ransom.’

  ‘You’re talking about a god Aquitain. It’s not good to provoke gods.’ said Granddad.

  ‘This is my house and they have to live by my rules, Granddad.’

  ‘Now I have an idea of how to immobilize him so that I can get into his mouth. You need to shoot in and get Alpha up his rear end when I give the signal. Glammer can you come with me, I want you to help me prepare.’

  Rori looked up and said ‘How can I be helping Spirit Lord.’

  ‘It’s okay Rori. I think that we’ve got it covered.’ replied Aquitain.

  Aquitain and Glammer left and Miranlla raged.

  ‘The bitch thinks that she’s so smart. I could explode!’

  ‘Calm down Miranlla! You need quick judgement and a steady hand for your part. Team work is essential if we are to succeed.’ said Granddad trying to keep a straight face.

  She glared at Granddad and said. ‘I guess you’re right and started singing the calming mantra.’

  Aquitain took Glammer down to Gateway 5 and explained what he wanted her to do.

  ‘We’re going to go down and tap the magic pool. It will cause my spirit and body to bloat. I want you to sing the growing song to grow me about three times the size of that dragon. I want the body mass heavy enough to hold it down long enough to get my spirit into in through its mouth and I want enough volume of spirit to ensure that I can push its spirit out without fully leaving my body.’

  They went down to place where the dragons dumped the magic. He passed through the protective shield and went over the magic essence pool and drank in as much as he dared then returned and let her sing him bigger. He did this several times being careful when he felt full. Soon he was enormous and began attracting attention from the Earth elementals.

  The brightest eventually turned up and asked what he was doing. He said that he was, ‘trying to increase my bulk so that I can fight a dragon.’ The Brightest wondered about the tactic but said nothing. So they just floated around and watched. When he had finished he created a mind link and literally pumped most of his excess magic back into the pool slowly decreasing in size back to the normal.

  ‘Thank you for your patience, Brightest. I shall leave now.’

  ‘You are welcome.’ replied the Brightest.

  ‘I thought we were going to be in trouble there.’ said Glammer.

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t sure how the Brightest would react. I made a deal with him a few days ago and he’s probably not prepared to do anything unless I was openly breaking it which I wasn’t. I’m hoping that I have expanded my spirit volume enough that I can grow much larger. Let’s go and try it.’ He replied.

  They both left pathway 5 and teleported to the area where all their troops were practicing walking and moving around.

  ‘They look like they’re getting a bit better.’

  ‘Yes but it’s much slower than I expected.’ she replied.

  Aquitain removed the attachment of his spirit to his body and it melded back into the rock. Moments later an enormous ooze flowed out of the ground. It formed large flexible tentacles as thick as tree trunks and moved them around criss-crossing them like a net. He then flowed them all back to form a ball and turned into a humungous bear, strolled around flexing his muscles and then turned into a massive snake with a body thicker than the height of a new man with one head at either end then changed into a giant Newman as tall as the ceiling.

  He then shrunk back to his normal size Newman body.

  ‘Which one do you think would work the best? Using mind speak.

  She walked over to him and kissed him.

  ‘You are amazing! I think I would go for bear first. It’ll remind him of K’wala. I’ll get him worked up. You appear as the bear. Taunt him, then fade into the ground. I’ll taunt him and move him over to where you disappeared. You grab him with your tentacles and pull him down. I’ll jump on to make extra weight. You shoot a tentacle into his mouth and move in and push his spirit out. How’s that sound? ’

  ‘A lot easier than it will turn out I bet. But we’ll give it a try.’ and they returned to the control room.

  Miranlla had calmed down and wanted to know more details about the plan. ‘It sounds too easy. I’ve been thinking about my part. I can change into several animal forms but none will be very good at holding or placing Alpha with any precision. I’ll have to do it in my Newman body form. Granddad has kindly offered to make us invisible but the dragon may see us using aura sight. How mobile are our troops?’

  ’Not fit enough to fight.’ replied Glammer.

  ‘What if they were all melded in the floor and just popped up and went down if the dragon went near them. That way they wouldn’t get hurt and it would be terribly confusing to the dragon having spirit auras appearing and disappearing.‘

  ‘Now that is a good idea Miranlla. What do you think Tain? asked Glammer.

  Aquitain looked at Granddad and saw him nod.

  ‘Yes it is a good idea, Mandy. Let’s do it!’

  Aquitain and Glammer returned to the troops and explained what they wanted then to do. Then they practiced popping up and down out of the ground. Most could do it but several had difficulty. Aquitain and Glammer each took a trooper and guided them to a location under the floor and gave them instruction when to pop up. After that they would have to decide when to duck down themselves.

  Aquitain and Glammer finally returned to the control room and told Miranlla and Granddad that all was ready.

  Rori insisted on going along so Granddad made Rori, Miranlla and himself invisible. Aquitain mind linked everybody and advised them not to talk unless absolutely necessary and snuck them out of the control room and then he and G
lammer slid into the walls and swam down to the floor level.

  Aquitain gave the signal and all his troops popped up out of the ground and Glammer popped up to taunt the dragon. He physically tried to trample a couple of the troops and they just ducked down. He cast magic at Glammer and she just laughed at him, then as her rushed at her she melded into the ground. Miranlla, Granddad and Rori teleported in and took up positions hiding behind building debris. Aquitain popped up as a bear about the same size as Adonis.

  ‘At last the coward is going to give me the pleasure of killing him,’ boomed the dragon breathing a stream of acidic fire at Aquitain who melded into the ground.

  Glammer popped up behind Adonis and belted him across the back of the head then melded back into the ground. Granddad created a lot of large flying illusions to try and confuse Adonis who snapped at one and quickly realized that it was an illusion and ignored them. The troops popped up and down. Aquitain suddenly rose up from under Adonis as a massive slime with eight tentacles which criss-crossed Adonis’s body and locked together pulling him down then he flowed his body over the dragon forcing it down by sheer weight.

  Adonis changed shape growing four heads on neck stalks and starting spewing acid fire over Aquitain’s rock body that ate into the rock weakening it.

  ‘This is not good.’ said Miranlla. She handed Alpha to Rori and changed into her full sized Llanllean spider form then placed a dollop of sticky web on the grown and jumped at the nearest head pulling it down with her weight. She wrapped it with spider silk then jumped for another head and did the same. Rori ran around behind the dragon watching for an opportunity. Granddad created a zone of stasis that would prevent teleporting.

  The dragon struggled to get up. Aquitain slithered fully onto it trying to work out which head to enter. Rori ran to the head glued to the ground with spider silk. It growled at him showing big fangs and breather acid at him. He ducked and thrust alpha into its throat then yelled through the mind link ‘Spirit Lord, I have the trap in one of its mouths.’

  Aquitain heard it and sent a tentacle towards its anus and finding the opening, flowed his spirit into the dragon, pushing the dragon’s spirit towards its heads.