Spell Weaving +1

  Spell Weaving +1

  Her mind felt stretched to its max, but the weave was coming together. There were still small imperfections allowing the hostile energy through to attack her, but she could breathe easier. That wasn’t good enough though. Mira doubled down on her efforts and kept pushing.

  Spell Weaving +1

  Now she could see more clearly as the gray started to recede. The weakness in her body hadn’t fled yet. The minutes continued to pass, and she felt herself reaching the point of mental exhaustion. The mortal mind could only focus this intently for a limited amount of time. Her practice as an enchanter had certainly helped her, but this was a new level.

  Three hours in she was about to crack when another notification popped up.

  Spell Weaving +1

  Spell Weaving: 21 - Learn what this skill can do by using it. Its potential is nearly as limitless as your imagination. At its most basic level, this allows you to see a spell form as woven tendrils of mana. You may tighten that weave, unravel that weave, or perhaps with practice reshape or repurpose that weave. Mana costs are variable.

  Apprentice Perk: Spell Weaving requires 25% less mental effort. The shaping of the fundamental building blocks of Eloria will come that much easier to you.

  The load on her lightened just enough that she could snap the rest of the weave together. As it formed, strength returned to her body. The weight on her soul was gone, and she stood up. Dragos was squatting next to her as he had been the entire time. For someone so intent on treating her as a prisoner, he had been a loyal friend.

  As she sat up, an odd expression crossed his face. It was hard for her to guess what a dragonkin’s expressions might mean, but if she had to call it anything, she would have said it was relief.

  The grayness was entirely gone, and she felt almost normal. It was still going to be necessary for her to maintain her weave, but she was safe from the killing mana in the air. When she looked at Dragos, she now had the mental energy to spare for her to realize that the power was already shifting around him.

  She wondered if he had done that intentionally. It didn’t look like it. The barrier around him was smooth and perfect, not like the hodge podge mass she made.

  “How are you able to resist?” Mira asked him. As she spoke, she realized that her throat was completely parched. Her free hand went to her bag of holding and pulled out a waterskin that she used to quench her thirst while waiting for Dragos to answer.

  “I told you. This place was made for my kind. If the shadow clan had come here, they would have died violently. I still don’t know how you survived, and I just watched it with my own eyes.”

  “Made for your kind? What does that mean? Why was it made for your kind, and how are you different from the shadow clan dragonkin?”

  “So many questions. Is it always going to be like this with you?”

  Mira felt exasperated. There was so much to learn, and no one wanted to answer her questions. Dragos must have sensed some of that. He whispered almost too softly for her to hear, “Yes uxor.”

  Then he stood from the squatting position he had held for hours while he watched Mira struggle against the magic of the dungeon. “I am a True Born. This is both a class and a designation within my race. Only those who are born with it can take this class, and even then only those who pass the trials. A True Born is a dragonkin who can still take on a draconic form.

  “It gives us the potential to be much stronger than our kin. All of them are born with an aptitude for a single school of magic. Some of them are born with draconic resistances to certain types of elemental damage. A few are born with a reduced form of the breath weapon attack that is native to our ancestors.”

  “Oh, is that what you used to burn them before?”

  He sighed. “Yes, now are you going to let me finish answering your questions or will you keep coming up with more?”

  She gave him her best smile along with that look a woman learns instinctively. “Both.”

  Dragos shook his head but continued, “I will never be as strong as the elder dragons—or it is highly unlikely—but there are less than a dozen of them alive. They are the leaders of the different clans and are all slowly dying out. Soon leadership of our race shall fall to the True Borns—who are only number slightly more than the elder dragons.”

  Mira nodded and opened her mouth to ask another question but bit down on her lip when she saw him frown. There was something so intense about the way he was staring at her now.

  “This dungeon was created to teach us about what led to the fall of our race and how to avoid a similar fate in the future. I am immune to the effects of this place but not to the monsters that we will find deeper inside. Those we will have to fight.”

  “You know a great deal about the dungeon. Have you been here before?”

  “No, I can only come here once—like any other being—but there are stories passed down amongst the True Born. The dungeon has existed for thousands of years. It has existed since the age of the dwarves, but no one knows if it was a specially created dungeon or if it was just a natural result of all the killing that happened when the elder dragons clashed with the spider matriarchs and all the world was a battlefield.”

  Mira’s mind raced, but she did her best to just keep listening. When he didn’t say anything further, she asked, “What now?”

  “Are you well enough to move?”

  “Yes, I feel fine, but thank you for asking. I may not be as tough as your scales, but I am stronger than you think.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt, uxor.”

  Mira started to ask him what that word was since it wasn’t translating for some reason, but then she heard a screeching sound. They both whipped their heads around and saw a great dragon descending from the sky. Having seen Altracia, the dungeon drake, Mira had expected to be ready to see a dragon, but this being was not the same thing at all.

  Oh, the shape was similar. It had golden scales like Dragos but was much larger than Altracia. She was thirty feet long whereas this creature had to be at least two hundred feet long. Its chest was at least thirty feet wide. Its head was larger than a minivan, and its wings blotted out the sun.

  A mere comparison of size didn’t do enough to show the difference though. It had a presence that struck her senses like a hammer. The creature was power incarnate. Its form was majesty, and she was but a speck before it.

  Next to her, Dragos lowered his head and mumbled, “Great one.”

  The dragon was so large that at first Mira didn’t realize it wasn’t coming down on them. Instead, it was coming down on an open area a few hundred feet from them. The ground seemed to shake even at this distance when it landed. Dust flew up in a cloud that obscured her vision.

  Then, out of nowhere, three figures appeared. Mira could only make out the outline of their shapes. One was tall and clad in armor, another was stooped and leaning on a staff, and the third appeared to have wings sprouting off their back. What hit her the hardest was that Mira couldn’t detect even a hint of the magic that had allowed them to teleport in.

  In contrast, the dragon practically exuded magic. It was a well of power that made her feel an almost lustful desire to possess it. As that urge swelled up within her, she felt as much as saw the winged figure look at her.

  A simple glance conveyed great meaning. It was good to desire strength, but power was not an end unto itself. Mira felt her cheeks grow warm as she realized how much she had changed. Power was a means to an end. In this case, power was the means to gain security for her and her family as well as a growing number of people she cared for.

  That thought caused her to feel lighter.

  Then she saw the dragon bow its head before the three figures. Radiant light flashed, and they were gone. The dragon lifted up its head and roared. It flapped its great wings to take to the sky again. Dragos seemed to be completely enraptured, but Mira was still trying to understand just what she had seen.

  A notification popped up.

  Congratulations. You have survived the first trial of the fallen, the trial of the soul!

  XP Gained: 1000

  Stats: Wisdom +5

  Eloria is conflict. Sometimes the greatest conflict is in finding purpose. Other times it is in knowing your place.

  Interlude 3

  A few minutes ago—

  Merrick Dragos stared at her. She was only a human—well, a half-elf—but something was different about her. He couldn’t look away from her. She had stumbled through the portal after what felt like an eternity. Whatever happened to her in the space between zones must have been intense.

  Yet, it was nothing compared to the storm that was coming for her. It might have been better if she had simply died on the claws of the shadow clan. No, he would never want that filth to have the satisfaction. They were traitors to their race as far as he was concerned.

  The lesson that all golden dragonkin learned from their ancestors was a bitter one. Once dragons had lived glorious, free lives. They soared over the land of all Eloria. Even the great sea between Solun and Talos was not too great a distance for the strongest of them. They were truly a race blessed by the gods.

  Dragons possessed the most powerful bodies and the longest lifespans of any mortal race. They were masters of magic as much as physical might. Truly they were the apex predators. Yet, a strange day came. It was passed down how many thousands of years ago, the celestials had come to them and reported that they were being called away from Eloria.

  The celestials had been an immortal race of caretakers who looked over Eloria for whoever its creator was. Dragons knew there were gods out there, but in their might and freedom, they paid no heed. Nor for that matter did the gods seem to want anything from dragons.

  That changed as the celestials changed. More and more of their kind were corrupted and became fiends. Instead of protecting the life of Eloria, they sought to rule over the mortals. The celestials who had not been turned spoke to the elders of the dragon race and asked that they agree to shepherd the lesser races.

  They agreed, and then in one day all the celestials and fiends were pulled away from Eloria. They went to other planes that could only be reached by powerful magic. That was not the only change though. That was also the day that the system came into being.

  All mortal beings started getting notifications directly put into their minds. Their relative strength was now quantified by a numerical system. More than that though, conflict entered the world. Before there had been a beautiful rhythm between hunter and hunted. Now, all living things struggled, and none knew peace like before.

  This was especially true of the dragon elders who had agreed to the task without fully understanding what was being asked of them. The lesser races grew much stronger with the new system in place, but they also grew more contentious. Soon, some of them rose up against the dragons who merely sought to keep them safe.

  Those actions resulted in the rise of the spider matriarchs—a vile race that sought to feed and expand. In that way it was much like the humans, one of the youngest races but their power was much greater.

  The dragons tried to crack down and bring order to the races so that the hordes of spiders might be fought back. But every action they took only caused the lesser races to chafe more at their stewardship.

  It was during this time that the dragons came to know names for the gods. Some of the gods were aloof and beyond even their understanding, but others kept rising up. Time and again it was discovered that the gods who sought rulership were false. Each fallen god was shown to be an archfiend who tried to dominate the lower realms.

  At some point, after a couple thousand years, a tipping point was reached. Too many dragons were dying fighting off the fiends and spider matriarchs. Even when some force intervened and locked the fiendish realms so that they could only enter the mortal realm if they were summoned, it was too late.

  All-out war with the spiders was unavoidable. Dragons might be the wasp to the spider, but the dark race bred too quickly, and their matriarchs were not to be trifled with. Eventually, some of the dragons declared themselves absolute rulers and insisted that the lesser races help them in the war. Millions were conscripted, and war raged for more than a century.

  Even after the spiders fell, war was not over. The lesser races, sickened by their losses and blaming the dragons, rebelled. Some of them had grown truly strong during the war, and while none could face a dragon elder one-on-one, they were wise in the ways of war.

  As the dragon elders told it, the true Gods descended upon Eloria that day and ordered a gold, the strongest of the dragon elders, to stand down. Their bloodlines were to merge with the lesser races and that way they might continue in a fashion. Such was the price of their failure and hubris.

  The war had made much of Eloria uninhabitable. Over the next few centuries, Solun itself had to be abandoned by all but the dragonkin and the few remaining dragon elders. But, over time, the land healed, and the lesser races returned. They once again fled the results of a great war, this time against one of their own, the Sebians. An entire race was wiped out, and Talos was left to lay fallow.

  The dwarves rose and then other races, and the dragonkin were few in number so they bowed their heads. They were not the same as the dragon elders and had more limits, which made them more akin to the lesser races. The only exception was the rare true borns.

  To those it was given to know the failures of their race and to enter this dungeon and learn the restraint necessary. Dragonkin were meant to be strong but not to rule over others. Merrick had avoided this place for as long as he could and then on today of all days, he was forced to it.

  Somehow, his destiny was tied up with this young woman. She was strangely intoxicating to him from the very beginning. He should simply have struck her down, but Dragos found he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Now he stared down at her in wonder. He was feeling a confusing compulsion. He admired her for the way she fought back against the dungeon. Dragos couldn’t see mana and spell weaves the way that Mira could, but it was plain upon her face how hard she fought. He could feel a general sense of power coming from the small human. She was going to be a force to reckon with.

  Then it clicked. Something within him locked onto her. His throat constricted, and his heart beat like crazy. If dragonkin could sweat, he would have been drenched. Dragos had heard of this, but it hadn’t happened within his lifetime.

  The elder dragons had been so solitary that their race might never have continued but for a mechanism hardwired into their personalities. True dragons would imprint on their mates. It was binding for life and impossible to break. He had heard that it could happen to a true born but had never heard of it happening with anyone but another true born.

  Could Mira even receive his imprint? Would she be capable of responding to it, or would he be condemned to a life of one-sided devotion? As much as those questions scared him, Merrick Dragos couldn’t help but feel warm inside as he looked down at Mira.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Surviving is the burden of the living.” —Jayfen Tarzen, former chapter head of the Theriot branch of the Adventurer's Guild

  False Gods’ Fall dungeon- Solun- Mira Nelson

  Mira grinned. Making gains like that was always welcome. Especially when it only came with a bit of introspection. The pressure she had felt from those beings was very real, but Mira couldn’t help thinking that the real trial had been one for dragonkin and not humans. She could only wonder what Dragos had experienced. At least she knew that free stat points were all too rare. Her appreciation for the Wisdom stat might have also gone up now that she didn’t have the massive mana pool that the Converter prestige path had given her.

  She pushed those thoughts away and glanced at Dragos. He was definitely looking at her differently. She was sure it wasn’t just her imagination. Best to sort out what was wrong.

  “Is everything okay, Dragos?”

  He sputtered like he was caught off guard by her question. “Uh… it’s nothing to discuss now, just a dragonkin thing. We still have two more parts of the dungeon to get past though.” Then he added like it was an afterthought, “Oh, and you can call me Merrick if you want. It’s my first name.”

  Mira gave him a crooked smile. “So we’re on a first-name basis now, and here I thought I was your prisoner.”

  He shifted from foot to foot. There was definitely something off. Then Mira realized she didn’t know what the trial had meant to him. It might have unearthed a lot for a man who was the descendant of dragons.

  Even then, she couldn’t help but tease him some. “Maybe I will… but what’s with you? Something has you upset.”

  “As I said it is nothing.” Then he turned his back to her and started to head to the south.

  “Wait, wait. I’m sorry. I really do want to learn about you. We are in this together. I watched my mom and dad let things go unspoken for years. It built up and created a wall between them, even though they loved each other. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now in retrospect, it is plain as day. Communication really is the key to any relationship. It’s not like we are a couple, but we are a team in a dungeon, and so our lives could depend on each other.” As Mira spoke, she tried to put her most earnest face on.

  Dragos paused, then said, “I misjudged you. There are things I’m not ready to discuss now, but I swear on the first egg that they will have no bearing upon our survival in this place. My flame and claws will fight for you. You never need fear that. As for being my prisoner, your status has changed.”

  Mira forced the urge to be playful with him down. She liked Dragos despite his completely alien appearance, and something about him just made her want to tease him. “Changed to what?”