by Daniel Ruth
“I can certainly ask for that. However, having met at least one of the sacks of offal who typifies that kind of decision makers... it’s not really likely. I can ask for evidence that they have been removed from power and retired...” The fire continued to pour from her nostrils.
“Can they bring Cinnamon, Cocoa, and Ceyanne back from the dead,” she continued without expression.
“Well, no,” I admitted. “They are a bunch of useless humans. Extremely poor representations of the race as well.”
“Can they...”
I saw where this was going and was determined to head it off at the pass. “However, I can!”
“You have a resurrection spell,” Maribel asked in surprise.
“It’s an overpowered regeneration circle,” I admitted. “I have been working on a true resurrection circle but I am researching based off of someone else’s notes, so I haven’t quite gotten it to work.”
“you're developing your own circles?” Maribel’s blue eyes widened in admiration. “I am not sure I have the grasp on theory enough to modify the ones I know. Wouldn’t a regeneration circle simply clone the body and leave a vegetable in its place?”
“Excellent observation,” I nodded while smiling. Better a discussion on the finer points of magic than trying to talk her out of burning the nation next door down. “Yet I noted that with the higher background energy, people’s after images are more active in the firmament.”
“Souls and ghosts,” she nodded in understanding. “The human warriors that attacked me left a few I had to exorcise.”
“Exactly! So if you regenerate the body and the spirit is active, it will gravitate to the body and ‘possess’ it. I can even think of several ways to increase the likelihood of the spirit being attracted.”
“Ingenious. How did you discover this?”
“A human friend of mine was eaten by demons. All I had left was a chip of bone. I thought I would give it a try.” She thoughtfully nodded.
“Let’s do it! We can raise Cinnamon, Cocoa, and Ceyanne, fill them with their own spirits and then go kill the humans!”
“Wait a minute! Are you sure that such loving creatures as your unicorn would want you to take revenge, even after the humans are doing their best to make up for their rash mistakes?”
“Cinnamon had a bit of a mean streak,” Maribel confessed in embarrassment. “Unless you were a virgin or had been raised with her she was more likely to run you through than give you a nicker.”
Okay, strike one. “You're still trapped on this side of the portal. Do you want to spend all your time throwing fireballs at a dead city?”
“Not really. I have just been really depressed lately, seeing how my sole companions were vaporized in front of me!” Her voice had risen to a shout at the end of the statement. “How did you manage to get through the portal anyway? I couldn’t figure how to do anything. I couldn’t even contact gramps.”
Strike two but she had slightly calmed down. However, the look she gave me was verging on the suspicious. “There’s a story behind that. Some garbage about a demon lord. Let’s work on this anger issue first.”
“Demon lord?”
“Not important. Let’s talk about the future. Imagine I bring your friends back to life and they are merrily prancing about in a completely natural way that in no way resembles a zombie.
“Wait a minute. A zombie?”
“No. It in no way resembles a zombie,” I clarified. “So you're sitting here in your scorched earth paradise and because you haven’t made peace with your closest neighbors... boom!”
“I’ll kill them all!”
“But you’re stuck over here and because you have been throwing fireballs and animating the dead they have no reason not keep bombing you. You would be investing in your companion’s safety by making a treaty with your neighbor. If you have an agreement they are less likely to try to betray you and fruitlessly attempt to kill you.”
“Technically, they can only betray me if we have an agreement,” she huffed. She was rather dispirited at this point, so I thought I was getting through to her.
“So, can we agree that I bring your fuzzy little friends back to life and you accept your gifts of large gems and barbecued dinosaurs and everyone stops bombing each other.”
“That big box is full of gems?” Distracted, she raced over to the cargo box and peeked in the top. Soon only her rear end could be seen as she squealed in delight over her new shiny possessions. “These are so large. Where did they find them? I like how it all smells like you.”
“I don’t know what to say about that,” I muttered, somewhat nonplussed.
“Very well,” she stated authoritatively, as she dragged herself away from the storage. “I accept the delicious beasts and the gems as your courting gifts.”
“It’s not really mine...”
“And solely because my beau has asked me to enter a treaty with the despicable humans...”
“As I said, these are all courting gifts to my lovely Maribel.”
“However, since the humans have not supplied any wergild to cover the deaths of my companions they will need to supply two more containers of this size and capacity.”
“Two more,” my eyes widened in surprise. After a moment of thought, I shrugged. It sounded like getting these gems from off planet was pretty trivial. If it made my new friend happy, then it seemed fair. “Okay, that seems acceptable. Let me set up the circle by where they died and we will start our...” What... compact, treaty? “Date.”
Chapter 15
“Is it done yet?”
“No.”
Ten minutes later. “Is it done yet?”
“No.” I glanced at the girl standing behind me impatiently tapping her foot. “Could you draw a circle faster than this?”
“Well, no. But you seem pretty good at this.”
“Thanks, but I could get it done faster if I wasn’t giving status updates.”
“Fine. I’ll be over here. Waiting.” Sure enough, she disconsolately wandered off a few feet away and started pacing. It really wasn’t any less distracting. Shaking my head, I gathered my powers of concentration and focused on finishing the circle.
Fortunately, Maribel had a very generous selection of ingredients specifically for circles. They included some rarer selections such as griffin hair, griffin dander, unicorn horn dust (likely from shed flakes) and pegasus feathers as well as the ever-popular dragon blood. I just had to remember to save some for the actual cloning. It seemed like cheating, but I couldn’t think of why it wouldn’t logically work.
“Done.” I sighed as I sat back on my heels and rested. “Who first?”
“Cinnamon!”
Taking out a speck of the dust I placed it in the center. Not wanting to get randomly cloned plants and animals from the environmental dust I added Cinnamon’s name to the normally empty targeting portion. Next, I energized the circle. I forced significantly more amount of energy into it than last time, since I was working with a lot less material. Maybe I should have started with the pegasus feather.
As I watched, the speck glowed with energy and visibly enlarged from a speck to a horn. Then the somewhat gruesome scene of a bloody horse’s skull blooming from it. I talked to Maribel, “How did you keep the components intact?”
“Subspace storage.”
“You can do dimensional pockets? That’s pretty advanced...” In fact, it was advanced enough that I was wondering why she was still trapped by Vatapi’s circles.
“Eh, folding space is pretty easy. I think almost all dragons get the hang of it, once they hit their final growth spurt. I keep all my equipment in them.”
Ah, so it wasn’t a deep understanding of the concepts, just some inherited skills coming to the foreground. I knew how that was.
“If you’re good enough you can get an entire realm a few thousand acres and an illumination that almost resembles a real sun.”
“I can see the appeal to that.”
“It’
s just as well I haven’t got it working yet. It’s hard enough to get into my tiny storage space with the dimensions locked down, let alone an entire realm. Speaking of which, you say a demon lord set it up... oh, look her heart is forming, how adorable!”
Sure enough, the unicorn’s open chest cavity was forming a nascent heart that was starting to twitch. A moment later white ribs closed around it and I could see lungs almost inflating behind them. Not what I would call adorable, really. More like a vivisection in reverse. At least the head was mostly formed, though the hair and eyes were still lacking.
“All my little ones are going to have the same birthday,” gushed Mirabel. I nodded in response. While this was certainly true, I didn’t understand why it was important. Maybe it was a woman thing.
After several minutes of this display, a newly born unicorn lay limply in the circle. “It looks a little bit empty.” This was true. The unicorn rested on the ground as if it had no desire to get up or even raise its head.
“Looks like its spirit isn’t going to voluntarily jump back in. Let me check to make sure it’s still around.” I sat back down on the ground and closed my eyes. This did not prevent me from sensing Maribel’s gaze burning into me. I could sense that could be a turning point in our relationship if things didn’t go well.
Reaching into my pocket, I grasped the anchor shard. I couldn’t let my astral body be jerked through the gate and across the world to where the main rune was located. Chances are, I would be permanently vacating my body. Then I let my consciousness slip sideways into the astral. Although the astral plane isn’t the afterlife, ghosts and spirit entities do have a presence there and they are definitely easier to see.
Opening my insubstantial eyes, I involuntarily flinched backward. There, before me, in an eerie display of animal solidarity stood the ghostly figures of a unicorn, pegasus, and griffin. Staring balefully. At me.
“Good boy?” I hesitantly called out. It occurred to me I didn’t know the sex of the creatures but since they were ghostly specters, hopefully, they wouldn’t care. “Why are you glaring at me? I didn’t kill you.”
Ignoring the evil stares, I quickly returned to my body. Looking at the dragon turned girl, I opened my mouth to tell her what I had seen but paused. What exactly would I tell her? “So. I found your pets.”
“Awesome! When can you stick their spirits back into their bodies.”
I sat on the ground with her eager expression shining down upon me. “Did any of your pets ever get... possessed?”
“What an odd question,” she said with a puzzled expression. “Of course not! I may not be a psychic expert, but I know enough to get rid of a pesky little spirit. My little ones are one hundred percent cuddly fun!”
“And you absolutely positive you want them back?” I asked just to be clear.
“Of course I do,” Maribel huffed in exasperation. “Are you trying to get out of this? I don’t want a zombie unicorn,” she gestured in disdain to the comatose unicorn still laying the circle. “I want my Cinnamon back!”
“Fine.” This couldn’t possibly end well but I couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t get an infuriated demi-goddess dragon tearing into me. Still sitting, I opened my perception enough that was straddling the mundane and the astral. Instantly I once again perceived a baleful pressure as three angry spirits glowered at me. I imagined a silver line stretching from the ghostly unicorn to the limp physical body. It certainly wasn’t a real astral cord but then again they weren’t really on the astral plane. The entity fully had the ability to enter its own body as a ‘possession’. Mat’s situation proved this. The spirit just had to want it too.
“Come on, don’t be stubborn,” I coaxed the unicorn. It simply glared harder, eyes seemingly lighting with an inner unholy fire. “Don’t you miss Mirabel, little fellow?”
The creature huffed in anger and shook its head wildly. Unicorns aren’t exactly sentient. They are smart animals. Magical animals, but I am almost certain they didn’t understand speech any more than a horse would. Still, it wasn’t promising. “Fine. Bloodthirsty beast. How would you like vengeance on those that blew you up?”
I may have been wrong in my estimate of its intelligence because I swear the animal’s eyes lit up. More so, I mean. Prancing in place, it turned and immediately charged towards the silver line. Frankly, the line was more of a concept than a real thing, but it should be guide enough for a spirit to find its own body.
Once again I brought my perceptions in line with the physical world. With trepidation, I opened my eyes. Sure enough, what I had feared had come to pass. Cinnamon had staggered to its feet and charged in a berserker rage, horn first, at Maribel. The lady dragon had an ecstatic expression on her face and was holding her arms out.
“Cinnamon! Your back!” Regardless of her appearance, like me, she was a dragon. The unicorn crashed into her with its full weight behind it. The earth shook slightly, the thudding sound permeated the air. Maribel didn’t even step back. As the unicorn was rebounding, she had already placed her arms around the beast's neck in a terribly strong hung. Within seconds, she had grown, taking the form and size of a twenty-foot tall titan. This giant female was hugging the unicorn in her arms, lifting it off the ground and twirling it around in delight. The horned creature didn’t look at all happy about this turn of events and seemed divided in its intent to struggle free and twist its horn around to stab it in the giant woman’s eye.
“You’re just as cute and huggable as ever!”
I simply sat and watched the scene in amazement. It was disturbing in ways that it was hard to comprehend. I didn’t need my amazing empathic powers, which I usually ignore anyway, to see that Cinnamon... really loathed Maribel.
“Has Cinnamon always been this... enthusiastic around you?” I asked cautiously. I needn’t have bothered attempting diplomacy. I wasn’t any good at it and she didn’t care.
“You bet she has! I was so worried when she just lay there. But now she is back and I owe it all to you!”
“Yay me,” I said faintly as I looked at the biological samples that were intended for the other two creatures.
“Are they like this for everyone,” I asked with some trepidation.
“Of course not. They only play with me. They tend to ignore everyone else.” At this point, the unicorn was cradled in one arm and she was stroking its head roughly. The beast was frantically gnawing on the girl’s arm, but she happily ignored this and continued petting it. “Now you can bring Cocoa and Ceyanne back and we can romp around just like we used to.”
Could I really bring those two creatures back to be tormented forever? After thinking about it, I shrugged. They didn’t have to enter the bodies I regenerated. The choice was up to them.
In the end, I did indeed bring them back. They all hated Maribel just as much as Cinnamon had. Fortunately, after ‘playing’ with her for several hours and finding out they still couldn’t injure her, let alone kill her, they proceeded to ignore her. Once she wasn’t distracted, I made a pit to cook more dinosaur meat. We then sat, while I tended the fire and chatted.
“So what does your dragon form look like? Can I see it?”
“I kind of got cursed into humanoid form,” I reluctantly responded. I didn’t want to dwell on it, but it was silly to think she wouldn’t figure out something was odd. “Actually, I was trapped in human form but have been working on loosening the restrictions. I think if I can get exposed to some really earth-shaking transformation magic I can crack it. Maybe shatter it altogether.”
“Um, doesn’t that run the risk of causing enough feedback to turn you into a pool of sludge?”
“Well, yes,” I admitted with a frown. “But it’s either that or live with it. Besides, my breed is exceptional shape changers. Chances are at least fifty percent I’ll live through it.”
“Oh, well, good luck with that,” she offered unenthusiastically. “Who did it? Some evil human?” I looked at her pointedly. “Yeah, I guess that is a stretch. Hum
ans are too pathetic to ever threaten us.”
“It was some ancient dragon. I mean really ancient. Well over ten thousand years old. He was huge!”
“Why the heck did he do that? We usually leave each other alone. Unless we’re courting, of course.”
“I was living in a human city a few years ago. I was born close to it and just sort of moved in,” I reminisced. “It was close to a portal, so lots of non-humans too. Mages as well, though I wasn’t into that sort of thing back then.”
“Nice! The cities around here are mostly all human or all elves or all dwarves. Not much of a mix. I used to shop at the capital a few times a month until the gate opened.”
“I thought you hated humans?”
“Well, the local humans are a little less into mass destruction. They never blew up my home and are usually polite enough I don’t want to kill them. I still like the elves better, but the elves have better anti-teleportation wards, so it’s harder to get there.”
“What about dwarves?”
“Not to be racists,” she threw back. “But they are all greedy little bastards, who keep trying to follow me back to steal my stuff. Rude as hell. You don’t see me burning down their underground kingdoms to get their shinies!”
“Anyway, the farmers in the town outskirts were disappearing...”
“Ah! So he was setting up in your territory.”
“Exactly,” I think I was going to skip the part about following my friends out to protect them. It didn’t seem that Maribel would understand that part. “So I go out, find out it’s a dragon. Not just any dragon, but a really old fart.”
“What was his name?”
“We didn’t really talk except to threaten each other. I just call him Mr. Evil.”
“Why Mr. Evil?”
I gave her a flat look. “He cursed me into a human form, locked out my dimensional teleportation abilities and threw me into another dimension. Then he said he’d check on me in a few years to see if the experimental magic he used had killed me yet. And he killed my pets.”
