Dragon Core

by Sain Artwell

  Head pressed against Alron’s chest, she let the lullaby of chatter and wind pull her into dreamland.

  ***

  Nothing was left of the Nameless Island.

  Several days of flying over the ocean left Alron and his women in a precarious position. Land was three days away, and while Alron, Fei, and Oqhizt could survive living in the sea, Sofi—despite her brave insistence—would eventually succumb to the elements.

  Thus, they glided between the two azure abysses, hopeful eyes scanning for a ship.

  “How about we wrangle a leviathan?” Oqhizt asked. “Big enough to serve as an island. We could eat leeches or what-have-you critters that bother it. Maybe make friends with it?”

  “Lice and barnacles,” said Alron.

  “Them, yeah. Are they any good?”

  “They are nourishing for the body,” he replied.

  “Or, we could make a nice little cottage in its guts and live there!” suggested Fei.

  “Yeah, wow! That’d be cozy!” Oqhizt grew excited, unable to detect the sarcasm.

  Fei continued, “There’s only one problem: Where would we leave Sofi, while wrangling it?”

  “Hmm. That’s a… Yeah. A tough one. Sofi, hey, you can swim, right?”

  “Uh.” Sofi peeked at Oqhizt warily. “Somewhat.”

  “How many hours?”

  “Uh, maybe five minutes.”

  “Dang.”

  Alron grumbled. “Focus.”

  “Apologies.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We are focusing. Oh, right hand side.”

  Concealed by the illusory mirage, a tiny blob waxed in the horizon. It was barely visible against the distant blue-tinted shapes of stargod’s tentacles—seven black coils of continental proportions reaching for the heavens. Ever since they had risen from the earth, the waves of Deepfathom Sea had ebbed in the direction of the ascending god.

  “A longliner. Those are some crazy fishermen,” Oqhizt remarked, squinting at the blob; her eyes transformed to mimic those of a scryeagle.

  “Not so foolish as it may seem,” said Alron. “The entire sea moves, and many treasures are unearthed. If ever was a time for the fish to be on the move, it is now.”

  “How fortunate we are that there are wyrmkin who think like you. We should give them a reward for their cooperation,” Fei said.

  “How are you sure they’ll…” Sofi paused. “Oh, of course they will.”

  “They will cooperate,” Alron confirmed.

  The ship drew closer. It was thirty feet long with a small cannon on top of the cabin, and a thicket of fishing poles at the back, but no hooks in the water. At the front, four fire powered oars stroked a lazy rhythm.

  Alron spotted two wyrmkin on the bow and aimed his landing right by their side. “Greetings, I am Al—” His eyes drew wide with a smile. “Bronzebeard. Truly, a welcome surprise.”

  “Nooo, please no, not again…” Bronzebeard whimpered, stomping his foot at the cosmic indignation. A strained smile flipped onto his face, and he bowed. “Why, what a strike of fates this is indeed, o’ most venerated Lord Alron. Welcome, welcome!”

  The woman by his side looked faintly familiar, as did a few other crewmen. Bronzebeard repeated an urgent gesture to the dumbstruck ones. One by one, the sea toughened wyrmkin lifted their hands off the handles of weapons and imitated his bow. The boat stunk more of oil and blood than fish guts.

  “Any good catches recently?” asked Alron.

  Sofi and the rest of his women groaned with delight as they spread out to enjoy solid footing. Fei’s and Oqhizt’s brazen nudity garnered some glances.

  Bronzebeard’s gaze, however, never erred far from Apocalypse. Nervously, he twirled a spiral lock of his beard. “Nothing of note. The former navy has claimed all the good waters. Not much left for us. Might I ask how I and my humble crew could be of assistance?”

  “Have you navigators aboard?”

  Bronzebeard gestured to the wyrmkin woman by his side.

  Pleased, Alron nodded. “Excellent. Set course for the Nameless Island, and with haste. The sea will grow unruly once the stargod begins to ascend to the heavens.”

  “As you wish. And please do enjoy yourselves, my boat is your boat.”

  The next two days were both tense and relaxing.

  Waves grew higher, and weather colder, as stargod-Yuvera’s body slowly lifted off the earth and began to float. Though moons had come into full view, Voidwalker merely stared at the rising stargod, seemingly unaware that it was not one of its draconic brethren.

  Relaxation came in the carnal variety. Word spread amongst the crew that this was indeed an ascension event, and that the end of the world was nigh. After the first night of Alron’s women howling their orgasms at the stars, a strange phenomenon spread amongst the female crewmates. They wished to, in their own words, ‘experience what it’s like to be bred by a real man before they die’.

  Alron obliged, on the condition that they participate in Sofi’s desire for public humiliation. That night, she licked many cum-stained cunts and feet clean.

  The following day, they found the cannon-sculpted remains of a seatree jutting much higher above the surface than where Alron had left it. Either the Nameless Island had suddenly risen fifty feet from the sea, or the sea had sunk an equal amount. Given the strangeness of ascension events, both were a possibility.

  Thorny vines choked the trunk. And, in the murky depths by its roots, a great number of leaping bone-sharks and other sea-life drifted idly—predators and prey both heedless to their natural instincts.

  “Is his dragon-core there?” Sofi peered over the railing by Alron’s side.

  “Unlikely, unless something has claimed its vestiges. Carrionspawn only ever try to protect his remains.”

  “Alright, let’s go!” Oqhizt jumped on Alron’s back, melting into his veins through his skin.

  Fei remained by the railing, her newly acquired captain’s hat tilted by a bun of white hair. “I’ll stay. Someone needs to keep these low-lives’ hands off Sofi.”

  Alron highly doubted that the pirates would dare defy him, but conceded. He didn’t need everyone to dive, and while Fei’s fires were a boon even underwater, Oqhizt’s powers were a much larger advantage. Her blood could store breath.

  “We’ll return shortly,” Alron said, and he jumped overboard with Apocalypse.

  A splash replaced the sounds of the surface world with bubbling tides of the sea. Weight of the massive sword plunged them into the darker waters, straight towards the swarm of vine-animated sea creatures.

  There you go… Oqhizt fleshbended Alron’s legs, tail, and wings, reshaping them into fins suited for aquatic mobility.

  Much appreciated.

  A great stir passed through the creatures coiling within the abyssal chasm. Bodies rotten by algae and thorny vines craned their heads upwards, and sprang into action. A distant twinkling could be seen through the swarm. Like a sickly green star, the dragon-core of Carrion Scourge glowed with power.

  Dumb weeds, always so eager to get chopped, Oqhizt laughed.

  Alron drew from Apocalypse’s spin-core. The slab of metal traveled through both water and the thick skull of a leaping bone-shark’s head with equal ease.

  Stingers, tendrils, and jaws reached for Alron on all sides. He lost scales. Wounds were torn on his wings. Oqhizt regenerated it all in an instant, but just as his vis reserves were vast, so was the number of carrionspawn. Swimming turned to wading through vine and flesh. Oqhizt transformed his fins to blades. Wading turned to digging. Alron tore a path through mass which resisted his every crawling step.

  Should’ve dragged Fei along.

  Hm… Reluctantly, Alron agreed. Though Alron let his soulfire conflagrate amongst some carrionspawn, he could not manipulate the flames to as devastating efficiency as Fei. To make matters worse, Apocalypse struggled to convert the grappling assault of the carrion swarm into further spin-energy.

  Regardless, they made it. Within re
ach, Carrion Scourge’s old corpse lay vine-bound against the slopes of the abyssal chasm. Alron grabbed the corpse by its horned skull. With an upward swing of Apocalypse, he punched through the carrion swarm and through the surface.

  After fighting off the swarm, Alron and his women gathered around the drenched corpse. Sofi crouched in the centre, a set of strange tools spread around her.

  “Not that one…” she muttered, laying down a set of lenses. “There you are.” Sofi picked a pair of thin jadegold wires bent in spirals, and touched one against the top part of Carrion Scourge’s multi-vestige dragon-core.

  Sofi frowned. “Waves are making this difficult.”

  “What is it you are attempting this time?” Alron asked.

  “So, roughly speaking, in terms of god-physiology, you can think of jadegold as the nerves of a dragongod. Anyone who’s awakened a dragon-core can feel the smoothness of jadegold in terms of its vis transmittance ability. Anyone with a godly dragon-core”—she glanced at Alron—“realizes that there is more to it. Memories, sensations, and even commands can be imbued into vis, and jadegold is the perfect substance to transmit that. It positively resonates with vis! And that’s no accident. It resonates with vis because it was made to do just that. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how the dragongods might communicate over such distances—”

  The spiral not touching the dragon-core vibrated ever so slightly.

  “Yesss!” Sofi grinned victoriously.

  Everyone huddled closer. Even Alron couldn’t help but feel excited at such a quick break-through.

  “Explain,” said Alron, anxious to get on with his plan.

  Pride swelled in Sofi’s words. “Well, I can’t say for sure yet, but seems like Mlevanosk was correct once again. A godly dragon-core can reach out to jadegold over distances. Sorta like oracles, but more focused. Maybe faster? They’d have to be a lot faster if this is how dragongods talk.”

  “Excellent. Prepare it for use.”

  “Ack. Well, you see…” Sofi’s cheer faltered. “I’m not Mlevanosk. I said I figured out how dragongods might talk, not how we could do it. Could be an individual vestige they create. Could be something to do with their original dragon-core specifically. Give me a bit more time.”

  “You say you’re no Mlev, but that’s great work,” said Oqhizt.

  Sofi blushed. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime. Lemme know if I can help.”

  “Well, actually… It’s a bit tricky to map the dragon-core. If you could slip there and show me the structure—”

  Oqhizt’s blood flooded over the glowing vestiges and onto her palm. She created a three-dimensional blood replica in an instant. It was an odd tangle of vestiges and jadegold.

  “That’s… Perfect.”

  “Hrm.” Alron leaned closer, brushing his chin. “I’ve been practising vis-manipulation with dragonization. Perhaps it is time to push the limits further and attempt long distance communication again.”

  “Yes. I like that idea.” Sofi placed two jadegold wires on Alron’s palm. “Here. See what you can do with those. I suspect there might be some kind of… I don’t know the fancy oracle words. Some kind of ‘bzzzzz’ or ‘brrrrr-like’ feeling when your brain gets oracled?”

  “We call it scrying or telepathy depending on the usage.”

  “Mmm, yes. Fascinating.” Fei nodded, sauntering off to the side. “And I shall go over here, to this comfortable spot, and look pretty whilst lounging, like so.”

  They all thanked Fei for her contribution, and focused on work. Nightfall came. The stargod’s bulk blocked half of the sky. Those few stars which did shine upon Alron and his companions possessed an eeriness in their ghostly luminescence, as if they were somehow communing with the ascending divinity. For the first time, stargod-Yuvera let out a sound, a hideously moan of tectonic intensity. Low undulations of the cry thrummed in Alron’s chest. Blackened waves of the ocean broke into geometric ripples.

  No one slept that night.

  And this time, the dawn did not banish the shadows. Sunlight bent oddly as the new day rose behind the stargod. Its song continued to haunt the waking world, leaving the pirates unsettled.

  Alron and Oqhizt followed along with Sofi’s half-delirious ideas as she closed in on both collapse from exhaustion and the answer. Until, finally…

  “Okay. Have you healed from the last time?” Sofi asked.

  Alron patted his chest. “Ready.”

  “Dragonize the dagger.”

  Deep breath. Alron sent vis through the jadegold blade.

  “Remember the shape.”

  He followed Oqhizt’s blood sculpture of a helical blade tapering into an asymmetric sculpture reminiscent of the glass contraption which had housed Mlevanosk’s morphcore. Sofi inspected it, then gave him a nod.

  “Now pray I’m correct.”

  “Heh.” Alron stabbed it straight into his dragon-core. Accustomed to the pain, he relaxed, letting the jadegold construct tie itself around his vestiges. It settled beside his organs, humming gently. The flesh around it healed normally without any delay.

  “It is stable,” Alron confirmed, turning to Sofi.

  “That’s good, right?” Oqhizt asked.

  Sofi chewed her lip, eyes locked on the closed wound. “I think so. Yes, it’s good. It should be. Now channel vis through it, keep increasing the amount. Slowly. And… try to focus on contacting them.”

  Closing his eyes, Alron increased the trickle to a gentle stream. In the eye of his inner awareness, where all but his dragon-core was blacked out, the jadegold construct glowed white hot, bright as a forge. Steadily, the stream of vis gave into a rapid torrent. Jadegold was now blinding, sunlike. More. The torrent began to turn into a waterfall.

  Each of Alron’s physical senses focused on the dragonized construct, intensified to a keenness matching his physical senses, and further… further…

  He sensed it again. A speck wrought of all the colors forbidden to the natural eye, the colors of myth. A near intangible speck of power with infinite potential. Except it was not intangible at all, not anymore. Alron sensed the myth spark as if it were a floral explosion after cleansing his nose with dragonfire. It was sound, sight, smell — all five senses and seven more. It was infinite potential, the secret power.

  “Can you see it?” he asked, wary of disturbing his focus.

  “Are we supposed to see something?” Fei asked.

  “The myth,” he whispered.

  “It might not be visible to our eyes. Try to hear the dragongods?” Sofi urged.

  “Let us try.”

  Another breath, deeper yet. Alron plunged into the jungle of sensations dwelling within that speck of mythical mist. Voidwalker, he thought, ye ancient one, who sits above Farmoon, hear my call.

  His awareness shot up. In an instant, another speck of myth resonated within the infinite vastness. Incomprehensible and all-encompassing pain paralyzed Alron’s brain, as a presence of celestial proportions responded. Alron’s mind nearly crumbled beneath the single greatest mental assault he had ever borne witness to. Carrion Scourge, Sorcerer King, and all the oracles of Ascendancy were but ghosts in comparison to the consciousness of an ascended dragongod.

  Alron gripped tight on the rope of awareness. Remotely, he was aware of blood trickling down from his every orifice, and of his brain regenerating. He tuned out the influx of information, narrowing it down to a manageable stream.

  Mental assault waned, and Alron realized it had not been one at all. The dragongod had merely attempted to communicate with him. That alone had been enough to boil his brain in its own juices.

  Presence of the Voidwalker solidified in his mind. It did not speak as much as deliver intent, but myth translated thoughts into words Alron could comprehend.

  Hatchling. Ascend.

  At once, Alron’s dragonsoul stirred. He felt an incomprehensible urge to let go, to be one with everything, to embrace enlightenment as a dragongod and…

  He bit down until t
he taste of iron coated his gums.

  “Never.”

  Ascend.

  Twice, thrice… Ten times as intense, the compulsion threatened to wipe Alron’s identity. Through the blackness, he felt hands, their hands clasping his. My women. MINE! Alron roared against the command, anchoring himself with his greed.

  Odd Hatchling. Voidwalker sounded almost amused.

  “Voidwalker,” said Alron. “I called upon you not to battle you, but to give you a warning. The black one ascending may disguise itself as one, but a dragongod it is not—”

  Explain.

  Voidwalker’s word cut Alron off. The stream of consciousness flipped, and Alron felt himself being ripped from his skull. In less than a heartbeat, the dragongod combed through his thoughts and memories, as if they were a two-word writ note.

  When Voidwalker disjoined the resonance, it expressed neither rage nor gratitude for the warning.

  Alron collapsed on all fours, coughing organ slurry as his world blurred.

  “…flying!” the shout sounded as if underwater.

  Up, high behind the wrongly colored heaven, a dragongod lifted itself off of the Farmoon, breaking pieces off the silvery celestial orb. Voidwalker spread its fin-like wings into a sail reflecting sunlight. It moved eerily slowly, as if stuck in tar, but that was merely because of its impossibly vast size and the mind-boggling distances in the void beyond heavens.

  Then the sea rumbled, and the water began to flee. Corecrawler’s roar was the sound of tectonics, a deafening roil of a thousand avalanches.

  Before their connection broke entirely, Voidwalker granted Alron one last message.

  We are coming. Ascend. Or die.

  Chapter 33 - Star Rise

  Half a day had passed. Where there had once been the Deepfathom Sea, there remained only a cerulean wasteland dotted by puddles. Bronzebeard’s ship sat stuck atop a mountainous tangle of coral. Fish and sealife flopped on the drying seabed of titanic reefs and silt. Corecrawler’s movements quaked the earth every few moments, breaking the terrain with deep crevasses, which drank greedily of the shrinking dregs of the sea.