Chapter 22 : The Calm Before the Storm (Patreon)

Mnemon Rhomon, Sorcerer

Realm Year 764, Resplendent Wood

Domain of the Silver-Crowned, An-Teng, Satrapy of the Realm

He was curled up, sitting upon his knees with his head bowed low, clutching at his fallen allies. Grief was not an emotion he was accustomed to, the Realm never cultivated it in its royalty, and there was no outlet but clutched hands and silent mourning. He grabbed at the burlap that surrounded them, hoisting them from their graves by leather straps and tracing delicate fingers across their injuries.

Not a scrap of life remained within, just dead bones and cold metal. His face was twisted in grief, and he held them gently.

So much of his hard work… wasted….

“Thank you for the hospitality, Lord Katora.” Siata ignored his grief, bowing his head respectfully to the old white-haired man that apparently ruled the Domain of the Silver Crowned. His bags were loaded in the back of their carriage, with the addition of some new pale grains, Bollock the ram lizard patiently awaited for a pair of silver-haired men to secure him to new reins.

Were it not for the streaks of paler scales and the off-color eyes, there would be no sign of injury at all on the bipedal lizard. 

“Sleep lightly, dragon. The anathema and their agents are many, for their wicked masters are tireless in the corruption of man.” Lord Katora gave a firm word of advice, nodding at them. His gaze lingered on Rhomon’s mourning form, before his mustache wiggled in mild confusion. “...Your sorcerer ally…” 

“He’s mourning the loss of his talismans.” Brahm declared without amusement, helping Swan Dragon into the back of the cart. “They were too fragile to survive the sorcerer’s countermagics.”

“I spent so much time and money on these!” Rhomon wailed, clutching the dozen now-useless trinkets to his chest. “It’s going to take a month to replace them all!”

Three lucky charms, charms against poison, disease, six charms against various dangers and a walkaway- all destroyed. It took three days of steady essence-weaving to get the pattern to hold, and a great deal of his personal energy, and at least one somewhat valuable talisman to serve as the physical anchor. Three or four days of work, per talisman…

He had been building up such a wonderful stockpile too…

He clenched his eye shut and bowed his head in grief again. A long low groan spilled from his lips, verbally expressing his frustration with the situation. In the distance, a group of children giggled and pointed at his misfortune. 

“I’m fine.” He cut the grief off at once, pulling up from the ground and brushing off his pants. “It’s out of my system now.” He grumbled, stepping to the back of the cart and tossing his bag up there. 

Siata and the local lord got back to talking as Rhomon climbed up into the back of the cart, expression flat and slightly miserable. 

“Grandson, you seem frustrated.” Swan Dragon asked, sitting on the other side of the cart and looking at him with a curious but sympathetic expression. There was a new garland of woven vines upon his head, a gift from the local children, and the fog of derangement still lingered in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone broke all my talismans, grandfather.” It was strange to be calling the honored censor of the south grandfather, but they had to keep the story up lest the locals kill them for lying. With a sigh he reached into his bag to pull out a spool of copper thread. While proper metalworking required heat and a forge that they couldn’t sustain on the road, copper was a soft enough metal that he could just bend it into shape while cool. 

Which made it the perfect metal for making talismans on the road with. With hardened skin, Rhomon started working a section of the metal wire into the initial shapes of his new work. Certain shapes held and directed essence better than others, there was a whole science behind that field known as Geomancy, but Rhomon wasn’t trained in it. 

“Oh, well that’s not good.” Swan Dragon replied, brows furrowing. “...May I see one?” He asked kindly, making Rhomon look up from his wire-weaving and nod slowly. He reached into his bag and pulled out the walkaway- a charm that aligned fortune towards the path of survival.

If one’s survival came down to a coinflip, a walkaway would ensure that the wearer would live almost every time. A very situational but extremely useful talisman to possess. Rhomon’s preferred design was a cat poking its head out of a box, a reference that no one else would get. 

The raiton descended from the air and landed on the edge of the cart, chirping once before settling down. He couldn’t see any enemies through her eyes, but the recent ambush proved that was unreliable as a scouting method.

The raiton gave an offended chirp at him, then nipped at his hand. He felt absolutely no shame for the offense given- work on your eyes, lizard. He scratched her behind the head feathers as a peace-offering. 

The insane fire dragon looked over the broken walkaway for a few moments, humming in consideration. “Oh, it's a very cute design!”

“Isn’t it?” Rhomon chuckled, weaving the copper wire into a long spiral. He’d hammer this spiral over the campfire later to make a plate, and then chisel the character of ‘luck’ into each face. 

The old fire dragon fell quiet as his hands began to work the metal, with his eyes growing distant and his expression slipping away. There was concentration of a sorts on his face, but it looked more like his hands were moving on their own. 

After awhile, it became clear that the old dragon wasn’t making anything in particular, weaving the copper talisman with his bare hands through the patterns of old-realm stamps before stopping halfway through and beginning the process anew with a different stamp pattern. Rhomon sighed softly and returned to his work. For a few moments there, he was getting his hopes up that the deranged elder was about to make something. 

But he couldn’t hang onto any thought long enough to do that, it seemed. 

The cart started rolling as Siata took up his spot at the front, with Shuri giving a complimentary word and wave as they moved through the gates of the village and out towards the dim valley again.

“Thanks for the help.” Rhomon farewelled with a smile and casual wave at the mass of white haired, paranoid villagers. Lord Katora nodded firmly as their cart moved past the gates, followed by handfuls of laughing children and excitable dogs. 

“Most gracious hosts!” Shuri waved, his layers of silken armor replaced with a loose white tunic and shorts. The shorter sleeves revealed much of his bare limbs, the lithe muscles that covered each, and the pale green scales that covered him like tiger strips. His body was now riddled with these scales, far more than before, tracing over where the demons had mangled him. 

The scales, from brief testing, were extraordinarily tough and extended a bit past their visible sections. The regenerative effect of the healing potion reacting with Shuri’s bestial heritage and healing back the damaged sections ‘stronger’. 

Shuri had been embarrassed until Siata had remarked favorably about them, after which the snake prince kept them displayed as much as he could. 

“Where are we going?” Swan Dragon asked, looking around while his hands continued to work the copper in his grip, aimlessly moulding and unmoulding shapes. He smiled at the dogs and children that followed their cart, waving gently as the cart pulled up the valley roads and towards the stone gatehouses. 

“The house of hale mind, grandfather.” Rhomon reminded the insane dragon gently, setting down the copper weave and picking up his copper spindle again. “You need to attune to it with the hearthstone in hand.”

“The hearthstone?” The old dragon asked, head drifting over to him. It was the latest of many times that the elder had asked these same questions. Rhomon reached into his coat and retrieved the hearthstone compass, fiddling with it to unseal the gemstone and gently handing it over to the old man.

Swan Dragon looked at the stone for a few moments, muttering to himself, before pausing. He stayed very still while staring at the rock. Rhomon raised a brow, before slowly returning to his talismanwork. 

“It’ll be good to get him there at last, we won’t have to keep answering these same questions again and again, eh cousin?” Siata chuckled from the front, pulling the reins and directing the ram lizard around a bend in the road. 

“We’re only a few days away- five perhaps.” Rhomon muttered, fiddling with the trinket in his hands. “Six if we go slow. I’ll only have time to make two talismans by then, so best I make a couple luck charms and not worry about it…”

“Not a talisman against beasts? I remember that being useful.” Brahm commented from his normal position at the back of the cart, legs dangling off the edge.

“Or against demons- in case that assassin returns?” Shuri asked with an uncharacteristic venom in his tone. 

“I’m not worried about beasts or demons, being frank.” Rhomon stated bluntly, brows furrowing. “Now that we’re returning to the dominion of the Golden Lord- anyone who openly summons demons is one prayer away from being smote. Beasts we can handle or avoid as normal- at the worst I can attempt to command them.”

“Why didn’t you command the centipedes last time?” Shuri asked, even as Brahm cast a sour glance towards him for the implication of direct prayer for a god to intervene. 

Rhomon raised two fingers. “Firstly, I had reason to suspect that the wave of centipedes who attacked immediately after the wards fell were already sorcerously compelled- and thus thaumaturgical compulsion on my part would likely be ineffective.”

“And the second reason?” Siata asked with a vaguely interested note.

“I didn’t think of it back then.” Rhomon admitted, much to the amusement of his companions.

The conversation was cut off when Swan Dragon abruptly started talking again. “I…” They paused, turning to the deranged elder who was staring at the hearthstone in his hands. “I’m quite ill, aren’t I..?” The old dragon muttered, turning the gemstone around before clutching it tightly.

Rhomon’s humor gently drained from his face. “I’m afraid so, honored elder.” The talismans and potions were clearly helping, and it was entirely possible the old dragon would be able to completely recover in time with just their gentle help. A few years, maybe? But they didn’t have a few years, they needed him fixed as soon as possible. 

Shuri reached over to place a comforting hand on Swan Dragon’s shoulder, which the old dragon reached up to pat gently, still staring at the stone with a distant gaze. 

“...How long have I been… ill?” The dragon asked, a titanic effort to concentrate behind his eyes. His gaze was fixed on the stone, but the pupils wiggled frantically about through squinted lids, trying to puzzle something together. 

The rest of his companions glanced at him, the only one who knew anything about their patient’s condition. Rhomon smiled sadly. “A few hundred years, I’m afraid.” 

Siata sucked in a sharp breath, and the two mortals glanced at him with wide eyes. A dragonblooded, on average, only lived about three hundred years. They could live much longer, if they were powerful, but that was rare. His own mother, Mnemon, was four hundred years and still going strong. His grandmother, the Scarlet Empress, was over seven hundred years and could’ve survived much longer still. 

Swan Dragon had been insane for nearly eight hundred years now, longer than the Scarlet Dynasty of the Realm had existed. Rhomon refrained from speaking that bit aloud. “Don’t worry- it’s just a few more days till we’re at the House of Hale Mind, and you’ll be restored then. Just a few more days.”

“...Thank you, grandson…” Swan Dragon nodded slowly, visibly letting go of whatever thoughts he was trying to wrangle together and leaning back. A conscious effort to not work himself up, it seems. “I will… I will be patient until then. Please be patient with me. Please…” His words trailed off, and he rolled the gemstone in his hands for some time. 

“...Would you like to hold onto the compass, as a reminder?” Rhomon asked, gently offering the compass over to the elder. Swan Dragon looked at it for a few moments, before taking it. Without looking, he expertly fitted the stone into the compass and closed it again, eyes narrowing at the invisible glimmer of essence that trailed from the little artifact and into the distance. 

Rhomon couldn’t see it without retrieving his essence visor and reattuning to it, but he knew it was there. 

There was silence in the cart for awhile, as they pulled along the worn roads of the Silver-Crowned.

“Sorcerer… earlier, you said you weren’t worried about demons or beasts.” Brahm commented a few minutes later. “What are you worried about, in this case?”

Rhomon looked up from the coil of copper in his hands, before frowning and leaning back. “Frankly, it’s this Peleps Galan and whatever agents he might have.”

“You said you weren’t worried about him, back near The Lap!” Siata said in a somewhat accusatory manner from the front of the cart.

“I’m not worried about him politically, socially, or economically, no. In terms of pull, I have the protection of House Mnemon.” Rhomon shook his head and furrowed his brows. “Mother is well known for her vicious revenge against anyone who wrongs her or her house, the problem is if this Galan decides to ignore that and straight up kill us for whatever reason.”

He wiggled his hand. “Now, it's possible that Galan is just a real poor warrior and we can overwhelm him through numbers. Or it's possible that we will overcome his agents again and he decides against fighting us directly… All we need to do is get Swan to the manse, everything else will be fine afterwards.”

“And if the agents he sends are too powerful for us? Or if he himself is a great master of martial arts?” Brahm asked with a frown. “Will you declare that helping that alchemist was a mistake then?”

“No.” Rhomon stated bluntly, glaring over at the monk. “Doing good is good, I’m not going to regret it simply because it caused me some inconvenience.”

The monk nodded slowly, turning his gaze back to the road behind them. 

“So what are we going to do?” Siata asked, worry in his voice as they pulled along the roads and between slightly sad looking fruit trees. Comforting that his ‘cousin’ even after this newly revealed worry, was replying with ‘we’ instead of ‘you’.

Rhomon hummed thoughtfully.

He could try summoning a god or elemental, and bargaining for their aid in defense. Unfortunately, that ran the risk of the spirit recognizing Swan Dragon and being politically opposed to the honored censor’s return. If that happened, the spirit could probably steal away with the old dragon and there would be nothing they could do to save him afterwards. Nothing easy, at least. 

They could try requesting or hiring guards from the prince’s capital, when they returned. Rhomon still had enough political leverage from retrieving the crown that he’d at least be heard out. But he had no idea how far this ‘Galan’s influence extended, and that might just invite assassins or easily bribeable people into their midst. Especially if Galan was able to leverage the supernatural charisma of the Dragonblooded more effectively than Siata was.

His stockpile of talismans and potions had just been destroyed by the countermagic of the assassin- and it was possible that the assassin could come back at the same time as Galan’s reinforcements, possibly with additional demons, and if that happened they might just be done for.

“You’ve been quiet for awhile, sir Rhomon…” Shuri commented with worry in his voice.

“I’m thinking.” Rhomon replied curtly, hands coming together in front of his chin. 

He could try summoning animals, and using thaumaturgy to command them, but there was the risk that this Dragonblooded had some way around that- either by being strong enough to simply strike down whatever they summoned or the ability to command beasts of his own. 

He could try summoning and binding ghosts, but that ran the risk of keeping them around long term- sane ghosts would need to be bargained with for aid, and hungry ghosts required secrets that he didn’t know to keep leashed and docile for long periods. Both had a strong chance to backfire immensely.

He didn’t know who to trust, and who wouldn’t simply side with a Dragonblooded who promised more wealth than what Rhomon could offer, or who the Dragonblooded could potentially just kill outright. None nearby certainly, the Realm was far away, and those of power in An Teng were few…

Those with power in An Teng, who would have reason against siding with the Dragonblooded. 

He closed his eye. There was one he knew that fit that description. “I’m going to try summoning another beast, not to eat, but hopefully to buy time against this Galan.”

“A beast? You think he’s going to be defeated by a mere beast?” Siata asked incredulously. 

“A very powerful beast.” Rhomon replied with a nod and frown. “We don’t need Galan defeated either- we just need protection long enough to get grandfather to the manse.”

“When will you perform this summoning? Tonight?” Shuri asked.

“Not tonight. When we reach the shores of Thousand Dragons Lake again- I’ll perform the ritual then. If it doesn’t work, I’ll try something else.” If she didn’t arrive, then their situation was doubly precarious. 

Hopefully, she’d both be willing to respond and smart enough to arrive in the shape of some animal.

She was, after all, an ‘anathema’.