Chapter Forty-Two Of Questions and Family Rituals (Patreon)

Following the party, Arlie was more than glad to follow the royals into the privacy of their quarters. With the heavy doors shutting behind them, the air grew more relaxed. The king was quick to address her. “Please take a seat, we have a fair bit to discuss, young lady.”

Arlie nodded, “I have a lot of questions. Aunt Ria honestly didn’t tell me much of anything.” Then she frowned. “Right, I know the my daughter appellation is pretty m...”

“Wondering if I am your blood father, or if that was just court speech? I’m afraid not.”

Arlie sighed, “You wouldn’t happen to know who?”

“Now that’s a question I’ve wondered about myself.”

“What do you mean?”

Aunt Vivian interjected, “You were conceived during the Ritual Celebration of Life, one of our clan customs. When a mage of our clan nears her end, we convene to celebrate her life. It’s quite common for our female members to leave the celebrations pregnant. Aphrodisiacs and fertility potions of all kinds are freely available. After all, we encourage that development.”

Arlie blinked, “Shouldn’t I have sisters or cousins...”

“About your age? Sure, there are a few in the branch families. But you were the only daughter in the main family conceived that time, and before you ask. We weren’t blessed with any daughters before Vienna’s death. With the war going on at the time, few of us were willing to risk being pregnant during that time.” Vivian continued, “The Clan heads and I were considering doing something to rectify that, and…” She let out a breath, “Hellspawn started showing up.”

“War? Ria never spoke...”

King Grey answered, “It wouldn’t have been felt in some place as remote as Voros. The Dragon Clans were being rather aggressive during that period, and chose to test our walls with the combined might of no less than 30 Arch Dragon Priests. Thankfully it was only ten or so clans uniting in a powerful alliance, but for a while there we worried that the clans would unify again. Thanks to your mother, that didn’t happen.” he sighed, “Sadly that’s also what cost us your mother.”

“Arlie blinked, “Cost us?! I thought she died from...”

“Old age or illness? Don’t know what Ria told you, but while she was getting older she still had a few years in her.” He turned, “Davis? Do we still have the memory crystal?”

“Yeah we do,” said the High Prince of the Griffins, “give me a sec.”

The man rushed into another room and came back a few minutes later with the distinctive purplish crystal disk that was a memory crystal. They required a mage to read them, and used special mana techniques to record, well, memories. Only a mind mage could record to them, but any mage could read one. The crystals used were also rare and expensive. Arlie had never seen one personally. “A REAL MEMORY CRYSTAL!”

She covered her mouth, and slumped a little. Embarrassed that she’d let her excitement about one slip.

Vivian giggled and took the crystal. Her mana flaring to life just moments before they were all elsewhere. The room was replaced with an illusion of the past. Arlie quickly took in the wall, it was massive. Dark stone-covered earthworks rose a hundred meters into the air, marked by a series of bulwarks, ditches, moats, emplacements and towers. Soldiers manned heavy weapons, while knights on horseback thundered down the plains towards an army camped before the walls, mystic barriers protecting their array of siege weapons from the powerful Mystic Ballistae on the walls.

As the Knights ran past their position, a column of mages and foot soldiers advanced behind them. Arlie locked onto one woman in particular, they looked similar, but the other woman looked older, her eyes had little wrinkles around them and her hair had long turned silver-white. She was dressed in a full mage armor battledress, complete with their clan colors and crest, along with the markings of a Master Archmage. Her palms were glowing with magic as she raised one, “Gift of Feya’s Light!”

A weird light that wasn’t quite purple or blue rippled forth and spread over the Knights ahead. It was a spell Arlie had never seen, but she could tell it wasn’t the same as the blessings a priestess might confer upon one. Yet just like a blessing the Knights suddenly seemed stronger as they smashed into the line ahead. Breaking into two columns after punching through, they tore through the secondary lines and made for the Dragon Clan catapults and bolt throwers. Blades cut through wooden supports and structure as they ran past at speed. Several weapons burst into flame after as the enchantments on the blades activated, setting flame to whatever they’d sliced moments before.

Arlie’s focus returned to her mother, whose own troops were moving in front. As she shouted words of encouragement. They clashed with the broken lines, spell and blade cutting into the troops of the Dragon Clans. Arlie had been told her mother had celebrated two hundred and eleven years before her death, but she looked quite powerful and still had some youth in her appearance for a mage of over two centuries. “Mom looks pretty powerful.”

“Yes, her arrival some days before this gave the troops the confidence to end the siege of the wall in this sector. They won, but the battle I spoke of is soon to start.”

Arlie refocused on the illusions, and several dragon priests came forward. One of them speaking words of power, gray-purple circles formed around them. Strange grey-green slugs came forth, tendrils and leaf appendages dotted their form. “What are those!?”

“Spore Crawlers, I’m not surprised you don’t know them. They are native to Southern Dragonsreach, typically found in the forests of Everglade, the Elven lands. They are plant monsters that fight using their toxic spores.”

The Spore Crawlers, true to their name, crawled forward, before letting out a toxic breath of spores. Several guardsmen started coughing, the mages behind them acting quickly to counteract the toxins. Her mother blasted several of them with fire, even as the Dragon Priest brought forth new monsters. This time it was something else, grey-green skin, a female shape entirely naked, leafy hair and large leaves along their backside with tendrils running up their arms and legs, like some kind of gloves and socks. A grey-green veil of plant-flesh covered their faces.

Mom didn’t hesitate to blast the new monsters, two of them were turned to ash before Arlie could even blink. The rest released a breath of spores that looked even more potent. Her mother called, “Fall back! I’ll deal with the Spore Maidens and the summoner!”

The troops turned and fell back in an orderly retreat, the other mages covering them. While true to her word, her mother engaged the summoner and the Spore Maidens as she called the new monsters. Two other dragon priests joined the fight, but one of them took a lightning bolt to the face before he could channel a single spell. His form crumpled instantly, even as the summoner priest spoke, “Well I’m honored to fight the legendary Witch of Storms and Curses.”

Her Mom shook her head, “In that case, I hope the gods enjoy your recounting of this battle. You won’t live to tell the living of this story.”

That proved to be all the words they would speak to each other; as soon they were exchanging spells in a beautiful, if deadly dance. Her mother weaved around the battlefield like a fairy dancing among the flowers of a garden, weaving spells of lightning and fire with deadly accuracy. Spore Maidens and Crawlers regularly came forth, but none of them could stand long against her spells. The summoner however proved quite hardy as his wards repelled spell after spell, and his buddy benefitted by letting the other Dragon Priest channel powerful ice and earth spells.

Several times, the Spore Crawlers and Maidens seemed to get Mom with their breath, but she kept going, looking as hale as ever. Then one of her spells pierced the summoner, only doing so left her exposed and in that moment the other priest speared her in the belly with a spike of stone. Mom didn’t even blink as she vaporized the second priest with a powerful spell of fire, leaving not even ash behind to mark his passing. 

With the summoner gone, she burned the remaining Spore Crawlers and Maidens to ashes, pulled out the spike and cauterized her wound. Panting she turned back towards the walls, as the illusion faded.

King Grey spoke, “That summoner was the most powerful Dragon Priest on the field, one of the Arch Priests, and the strongest among the Arch Priests at that. With his death the Dragon clans’ lost heart and dispersed. Unfortunately Queen Vienna never recovered from her wounds, by the time she got to the healers, the toxins had already taken their toll.”

Arlie had to wonder. If this battle hadn’t happened, would she have grown up knowing her mother? They hadn’t told her the date, but Arlie had been told before by Aunt Ria that her mother had passed not long after her third birthday. This battle must have happened about twelve years ago, or thirteen years ago. Hmm, if she had to guess, she’d say thirteen; her sixteenth was in just a few months. Then another thought occurred to her, “Did Mom suffer?”

“No, Spore Crawler and Maiden toxins aren’t known for being painful. In fact they are well studied; the toxins are a natural analgesic. Unfortunately that’s not all they do. The toxins attack the lungs first and if not treated they... “Michael I don’t think she needs the full details on how her mother died,” interjected Vivian.

“That's a good point, and we do have other matters to attend to. I’ll leave teaching her about foreign monsters to you.”

“Other matters?”

“There is the Blue Temple to talk about, and my daughter Emila mentioned something about a clanless hero mage.”

“Well I wouldn’t worry too much about her being clanless for long,” said Arlie. “She and Polca seem to be getting along pretty well, aside from a little mix-up with a fertility potion.”

“A fertility potion? That sounds like a story,” replied King Michael Grey.

Arlie nodded and then thought for a second before starting. “The mage in question is named Hikari, formerly Hikaru. They hail from a world called Earth, I’ve only learned a bit about it from what they told me.”

“Formerly? Does that mean they were male? Who blessed them?”

“The goddess of the cycle. I was getting to things, but they were given a blessing called Duality of the Cycle, allowing them to be either male or female. As a male, they could use divine energy to bolster their strikes to hit with the force of a dragon. While in female form, they have access to the healing spell, ‘Sun’s Healing Light.’”

Vivian blinked, “That’s a really powerful spell. Few healers can learn it, I’d love to take the young lady under my wing, and if I’ve read between the lines right. I take it young Hikari is pregnant?”

“Yeah, that was the mix-up with the fertility potion I mentioned. From what I gathered, Polca purchased a number of aphrodisiac potions while at Arcs. Aunt Ria’s work. Unfortunately one of them was actually one of her fertility potions. High end, very potent and the two of them decided to play around with them while on the boat. Can’t say I blame them, sailing all day does get boring.”

Vivian’s face said it all as she shifted through several emotions. “I’ll take the pair under my wing then, and see if they need any mental guidance.”

Arlie blinked, “You can do that?”

“Sure, mind magic runs in our blood and I’m a fair mind mage if I don’t say so myself. I can at the very minimum help the pair smooth any bumps that might have happened due to what sounds like an honest accident.”

“Focus on Polca, I think she was hit harder by the incident than Hikari was. I’d have done something myself, but I can’t use mind magic.”

“Give it time, you’ll awaken it eventually.”

Arlie rolled her eyes, that wasn’t the first time someone had told her that. It was hard to believe, all her other magical talents had awakened long ago. The Dragon Breath thing was clearly a special case. “Yeah right, like that would ever happen. I’ve read the books.”

She really had, most mind mages awoke with the onset of puberty, but a rare few awoke earlier. Arlie had never heard of a mind mage awakening after puberty, and she’d already gone through it.

Vivian shook her head, “It’s not wise to ignore your elders, young lady.”