Chronicles of a Royal Pet- Of Scales and Distant Shores

by Ian Rodgers

  Root howled, rage and agony all he knew, and he flew off in the opposite direction in a desperate bid to flee the divine entities on his tail. As powerful as he was, even the Arboralnecromancer was no match against tens of thousands of A-ranked and higher beings while in a realm that rendered his Dark based powers utterly useless.

  Joris chuckled as he watched his foe vanish into the endless white horizon of Luminoth. He then turned solemn, and popped open a tiny portal no bigger than an eye, allowing him to peer through it and observe the Royal Ooze he’d been tasked to watch over.

  “Come on, Jelly, don’t make me a liar in front of that Void worshipping lunatic,” he muttered under his breath as he observed one of Nia’s three lilies.

  Chapter 18: Goddess of Love

  “…and that is how the war between the cities of Tenoctatl and Huhuxox ended, establishing the former’s dominance over the majority of the southern jungles to this day…”

  I squirmed as the droning voice of the lizardfolk – sorry, zalos – priest’s voice washed over me as I dangled in my prison. I rammed my body over and over against the glass wall that kept me from my freedom, but it refused to budge.

  Two days ago, I had been sneakily attacked by Dragon Priest Mand. The old jerk had paralyzed me and knocked me unconscious with a spell of some sort. After that, while I was unconscious, the damned scaly meddler shoved me into a large glass tank and hung me from the ceiling of the temple’s dungeon, like I was some sort of fancy chandelier or oversized lamp!

  The thrice cursed glass that was sealing me was apparently made from a whole host of rare, anti-magic materials. Sand taken from one of Gaeum’s subterranean beaches as well as powdered lead was melted by the flames of a dragon, then a gale created by a Thunderbird was harnessed to blow the molten glass. Lastly, sigils and runes painted with pigment rendered from the shell of an Emperor Clam covered the walls of my transparent prison.

  How did I know what it was made of? That blasted, backstabbing Dragon Priest bragged to me about it after I woke up within it.

  I was completely powerless inside the damned thing. My senses, both magical and mundane, were useless. I couldn’t see anything. All I could do was move around blindly. I could hear and taste things, but that was the extent of it. I couldn’t cast a single spell, or withdraw anything from my Dimensional Pocket. My pseudopods didn’t work properly, either. They just sort of flopped around limply like wet noodles. Any acid I made just slid right off the glass without causing so much as a discoloration! Even my telepathic connection to Tara and Rosa was severed thanks to this fancy prison of mine!

  And that wasn’t the worst of it by far. I was alone, and forced to listen to lecture after lecture from several old and crotchety priests. Amongst the zalos and kobolds, priests took the job of both mage and scholar, acting in the capacity of advisors and teachers to the nobles who ruled the city-states of Drakon.

  Why was I forced to learn about old conflicts between this city and that, or the nuances in gestures when speaking to other lizardy people? Because this was some sort of vile torture devised by the traitorous backstabber, Mand! I barely had time to sleep, and their voices were so shrill and piercing I couldn’t nod off during their lessons!

  It was agony! It was suffering made manifest!

  ‘This must be why most people hate learning,’ I griped to myself. Back at the Academy, I had always wondered why some of the students had despised going to classes and gaining knowledge. I actually found learning fun, at times. I was also a newly sentient Ooze, so that might have played a role in it. But still, I had always wondered; could learning possibly be terrible?

  As it turns out, it very well could be! Especially when you’re trapped and forced to listen to someone constantly drone on about topics so utterly pointless it made you want to cry!

  I smacked my body up against the glass, more out of boredom than anything else. So. Very. Bored!

  After a moment of the only sound being the wet ‘thwap!’ I made as I rammed the confines of my cell, I realized that the needles in my metaphorical ears had vanished. I paused in my assault on my transparent prison. The priest was gone? But he still had another thirty or so minutes according to the schedule they’d forced on me!

  I was not given time to ponder this new turn of events as a set of footsteps entered my range of hearing. These were softer and faster than the heavy and plodding movements of one of the older priests. Was a novice or servant here to clean my tank again? Once a day the temple sent someone to wipe down the glass and refresh the magic inside the runes that kept me trapped.

  But this time, after the cleaner set up the ladder in order to reach me and approached, the spoke to me. And it was a voice I recognized well.

  “I am sorry. I did not know my mentor would do this. I couldn’t even imagine it until it happened!”

  For the first time since my imprisonment, Rikee had appeared, and she spoke to me in hushed tones.

  I responded to her words with a huff and a gurgle. I couldn’t talk. I needed magic to do so, and the rune encrusted glass made that impossible.

  The squeaking sound of the wet cloth rubbing over the glass permeated my cell, and I winced at its annoying tone. There was a thick, heavy silence between the kobold and myself as she worked.

  “Your Familiar successfully ran away. None of us were able to catch up to her. She managed to evade even our Qoatls and Petradons!” she revealed after an agonizingly awkward stretch of time.

  I burbled with pride at Rosa skill. She’d be back soon, too, in order to help me escape!

  “If you’re thinking that she’ll be able to help you, I wouldn’t count on it,” Rikee declared as if she’d read my mind. “Mand and some of the other high ranked Magepriests set up several anti-Feykin wards to repel her and anything even remotely related to her. You’ll be here a while longer.”

  I grunted in annoyance. How dare they dash my hopes and dreams like that!

  A sudden, violent blurt of magical energy erupted around me, and I let out a wet scream in shock. The pulse of magic faded, then returned. On and on it went, like an eldritch heartbeat. I do not know how long this lasted. All I do know is that I huddled up in the center of my prison, shivering.

  What was that?! This damned cage was supposed to negate magic, both from manifesting within and stopping it from entering! Why had so much raw, unfiltered mana suddenly rushed past?

  “Are you alright? You’re shivering.” I ignored Rikee in favor of going mad with worry. When I didn’t respond, she let out an ‘Ah-ha!’ of understanding.

  “Oh! You must have felt the effect of the ritual just now!” the kobold Magepriestess said cheerfully. “Do you remember those prisoners of war from the day you arrived?”

  I hesitated for moment before bobbing up and down.

  “Those were some of the nomads captured from the plains tribes nearby. Summer is when those barbarians are most active, so the lords of Xocxotl ordered that they should be purged before we waged war against the humans. That way we would not have to worry about raids on our supply lines,” Rikee revealed.

  I tilted my body to the side. What did that have to do with the magical power I’d felt?

  “There must have been a shaman or two in that group. The last time I felt that much power from the ritual was when one of the tribes’ magic users was captured. They always have a lot of energy to give,” Rikee mused, and a dark thought started to come to me.

  “Blurb?! Gurb blurb!?!” I demanded, trying to speak. I assume she stared at me in confusion for a while, until she let out another sound of understanding.

  “Are you asking if what you felt was those prisoners being sacrificed just now?” she inquired. I bobbed up and down so fast I practically bounced.

  Rikee let out a hissing laugh. “Of course they were, silly! How else were we supposed to invoke the protection of our gods without a blood sacrifice?”

  I gasped, but the kobold continued speaking as if she hadn’t heard. “Before a battle, a Dragon
Priest will offer up the blood and souls of prisoners so that Aravantis and the Scaled Pantheon will bestow great power upon the armies that march under their totems! With the Dragon-God on our side, we can easily win this. So, don’t worry! The war will be over soon, and then you can go free!”

  As I sunk into a stupor from the shock of learning that blood rituals were actually a practice condoned by these people, Rikee descended the ladder, and I heard the pitter-patter of her feet grow distant before fading all together.

  I was alone once more.

  ‘This can’t be the end of it!’ I snarled to myself. ‘A freaking blood sacrifice ritual?! The power I felt just now could have toppled a city, and they’re using it to enchant an entire army! I have to get out of here! I can’t let this war happen!’

  ‘But how?’ I groaned. ‘I can’t use magic! I can’t use my innate talents or abilities! I can’t even brainstorm with Tara and Rosa for ideas on escaping!’

  I paused in mid-rant as a thought occurred to me. ‘Wait… I can’t use magic? But I just felt a ton of mana, even through my sealed prison! That can’t be… unless…’

  I let out a cackle and devolved into demented laughter as the answer came to me.

  ‘Of course! I can’t use any of the Ambient Mana or my own to power a spell, but what about Divine Magic?’

  ‘It’s so simple!’ I giggled to myself. ‘The Magepriests of this place should have had contingencies against such a thing if they followed the Divine Family or any of the Orrian gods. But here in Drakon, they have to commit bloodshed to gain the attention of their deities! They couldn’t even conceive of the fact I -- or any other prisoner -- would invoke divine favor without a sacrifice because our two systems of worship are different! Yes! I have a way out!’

  I quickly settled down, took a calming breath, and sunk into my mindscape. Like the other times I had visited since I was put in the glass cell, my mental domain was pitch black. I could see nothing. Yet at the same time I knew where everything was. I just could not perceive it.

  Trying to navigate through my darkened mindscape was tricky, but doable. Like a regular human fumbling about in their bedroom with the lights off.

  Eventually I managed to work my way over to the ‘shelf’ where Tara and I had stored the divine spell Gaea had gifted me back in Brune when I’d prayed to her statue outside of the city of Crotia.

  Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could perceive a faint, greenish glow coming from the tangled knot that represented the spell in my mind. I reached out for it, but paused.

  This spell was strong. At least a Level Eight in terms of raw power. With it I could likely destroy the prison that was sealing me. But I had a feeling in my core that now was not the time to use it. I needed it in the future.

  I huffed. But then I got to thinking again. If I could use Gaea’s spell, what was stopping me from praying to another god for a new spell?

  I laughed out loud again, and began focusing on an image of a silver lily. If there was any deity out there that would help me if I asked, then it would be the one who decided I’d make a lovely Chosen One.

  At first, nothing happened, and I was worried my hypothesis on the matter of Divine Magic was wrong. But just as the doubt set in, a piercing silver glow ripped through the darkness of my mindscape, blinding me momentarily.

  As I recovered from the flash of light, I noticed that there was a new door inside my mental domain. A white door, with a silver door knocker shaped like a lily flower. It was nestled between the pale purple door that led to my clone body in the Academy and the darker purple door with a gold door handle that would send me back to my main body. The former door was currently barred shut with inky tendrils, courtesy of my prison.

  I carefully approached the painfully bright new door, and lifted the knocker. I rapped five times, before an ethereal, yet oddly excited sounding, feminine voice called out, and told me to enter. The door opened on its own accord, and again my mindscape was completely suffused with silvery luminance.

  .

  “I’ve been waiting for you!”

  Before I knew what was happening, I was being held closely in a tender embrace, close to a bountiful chest.

  Stunned, I could only lie helplessly in the grasp of the being who currently held onto me. But I felt no fear, or worry. I knew, instinctively, that I would not be harmed by this person.

  After a few more minutes of being desperately cuddled, I was finally released and I plopped onto the ground, gasping slightly. For effect more than anything else.

  As I did so, though, I realized my senses had returned! I could see again! Speak again! Make noodle-like appendages to grab things again! I bounced with joy, celebrating slightly that the darkness I had been in for so long was finally gone!

  A giggle interrupted my dance of freedom, and I paused, embarrassed at having lost control of my inhibitions for a moment. I coughed awkwardly, and looked up at the person who had just been hold me.

  Had I a jaw, it would have dropped so fast and hard it would have shattered the fine marble tiles beneath me.

  She was beautiful. A divinely resplendent young woman, no older than seventeen or so by my estimation on her appearance. Despite being no taller than Princess Liliana, the figure before me appeared as vast as the grandest mountain and as incomprehensible as the deepest ocean. Pure Light Element mana poured off of her, wrapping her entire form in a cloak of radiant power.

  Her outfit was made of the finest silk the color of unblemished silver. It was a simple one-piece dress, with the color growing darker around the sleeves and hems. Dozens of white lilies had been woven into a simple cord that wrapped around her waist, and they emitted a soothing aroma.

  On her brow, a simple platinum circlet held her golden hair away from her eyes, and set in the center of the headpiece was a thumb-sized opal that glittered and sparked with divine power. Looking at the crown she wore, I felt an overwhelming desire to bow in as stately a manner as possible. I resisted the urge and continued my observations of the divine woman.

  As for her physical features, her skin had a stunning ivory luster to it, without a single flaw or blemish. Hair that was akin to spun gold hung down to her shoulder blades without the faintest hint of curl or crinkle. Her eyes were molten pools of quicksilver that swirled and danced with mysterious eddies and currents, while containing a twinkle of love and compassion as she looked down at me.

  Seated upon a silver throne in a hall of purest white marble, there was only one person this figure could be.

  “My lady Nia,” I said, morphing into my bipedal form just so I could bend the knee to her.

  “Rise. You need not abase yourself before me. You are one of the three mortals fate has decreed to serve as my champion in Erafore’s time of need. One such as yourself need never bow to me, or any of my family.”

  “I don’t think I can do that,” I admitted, and she tittered softly at my response.

  “I suppose old habits are hard to break,” she agreed. Nia clapped her hands, and the sound was like a bell echoing through the chamber.

  I was lifted into the air and zoomed over to her, reverting back into my regular spherical shape as I did so. I landed with an ‘oomph!’ in Nia’s lap, and she began to pet me softly.

  “Forgive me for this, but I have always wondered what this would be like,” she claimed somewhat apologetically. “Seeing your princess and the others do the same, I found myself hoping you would one day pray to me so I could bring you over to my realm solely for this.”

  “Here? Where am I, exactly?” I asked, looking around at the pristine room.

  “This is the throne room of my Hall of Matrimony, my personal palace within the City of White-Gold that the Divine Family controls within the Heavens,” Nia revealed.

  I turned stiff with shock. “I-I’m in the Heavens? Have I died?”

  “No, no, not at all!” the maiden goddess quickly comforted me. “No, when you prayed to me I opened a connection between your mindscape and her
e. You’re just an Astral Projection.”

  “Do you do this for all your supplicants?” I inquired after calming down from the fright.

  “Not at all. Most times, people who pray to me cannot even hear my voice, only feel my intentions,” Nia said sadly. “Only my Clerics, Paladins, and the truly devoted can hear the words of a god clearly.”

  She turned happy. “But you are special. I have rarely seen a being with such a well-developed mindscape. Those who do have one are much easier to communicate with, as their souls can be contacted more clearly. Had you not joined hands with that newborn Spirit of Knowledge and created a proper mental domain, this meeting would have been impossible.”

  “Tara is indeed an amazing person,” I said, proud of my companion. Nia nodded in agreement.

  “Yes, she is. Even Akasha cannot stop praising her. Well, when she bothers to say anything, that is.”

  Mentally filing away that information to wow Tara with, I looked up at Nia.

  “Can I ask you something? Was my hypothesis that the lizardfolk -- sorry, the zalos -- and kobolds had a different system of utilizing Divine Magic via prayer correct? Or were your powers simply greater than my prisons defenses?” I asked after a few quiet minutes of petting.

  “Your idea was quite right,” Nia praised, petting me softly. “Unlike the rather violent spirits and deities worshipped by the natives of Drakon, the gods of humans, elves, and dwarves have different requirements.”

  “Why, though?” I couldn’t help but ask. Nia smiled fondly at me, pleased at my inquisitiveness.

  “Because they are cold-blooded lizards in every sense of the meaning, and the spawn of lesser dragons. To those who carry the watered-down blood of the True Dragons, like kobolds and even the great dragons you saw outside Xocxotl, the act of sacrificing a portion of oneself is anathema to them. For humans, to pray to the Divine Family and other gods, one must sacrifice a small portion of the soul in exchange for blessings and spells,” Nia explained. I nodded, having already known that.