Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 12 - Dragons Together Strong (Patreon)

“Oh, come on  guys.  It was just a joke.”

“Not the time, Elijah,” said Imal with a tired sigh.

“Hundreds died,” pointed out Okar.

Elijah looked away, embarrassed.  It wasn’t the first faux pas he’d committed around the others, and he certainly didn’t think it would be the last.  Their cultures were different enough that he didn’t know all the social rules.

Still, in retrospect, he should have known that his jest would be ill-received.  It would’ve been back on Earth as well, so he didn’t even have the cultural excuse to back him up.

He still thought it was a funny comment, though.  Especially because the dragons, drakes, and serpentors gathered in the command center had no real context to understand it.  Like most things Earth-related, he could take full credit for the comment.

And all he’d said was dragons together strong, just like in the Planet of the Apes movie.  They had not received the statement well, with most just looking at him like he’d gone insane.  The others, like they wanted to teach him just how strong dragons could be. 

Of course, they wouldn’t go that far.  No one but his friends would even point out how offensive his comment was.

They were all too frightened of him.

It was a slippery slope, and he could see just how dangerous it could be on his psyche.  If everyone was too afraid to tell him when he was wrong, he might not ever know when he was making a grave mistake.

Or mistakes, plural.

“Sorry,” he said, looking from one person to another.  More than twenty people had gathered.  Among them were the usual leaders like Liona and Likarin, but there were others as well.  Like Cyran.  Or the leader of the Dravith Clan whose name he still hadn’t learned.  “It was a bad joke told in poor taste.  I meant no offense.”

“Who are you?” the female dragon demanded.  “Where did you come from?  And how did you kill so many orcs?”

Elijah shrugged.  “I’m just another guy,” he answered, his response entirely unhelpful. 

The Vengeance’s scouts had found the Dravkin outpost almost by mistake.  If it hadn’t been for the congregation of another fleet of orcs, they never would have discovered it.  The place had been built underwater in the middle of a vast lake that would’ve qualified as a sea back on Earth, and that positioning should have been enough to render them undetectable.

The orcs had found them, though. 

The fleet surrounding that outpost wasn’t nearly as large as the one that had besieged the Gilded Reach, but even so, the leadership had debated the prudence of lending a hand.  After all, a big part of their own survival involved keeping moving and avoiding the bigger orc fleets.

So, heading into battle wasn’t an easy choice.

In the end, Elijah had ignored their objections and started it on his own.  It wasn’t until after he’d used a non-soul-empowered Flames of Renewal that they decided to pitch in.  Even as the nine waves of Elijah’s ability burned through almost half of the fleet, the Vengeance’s cannons made short work of the ones on the fringes.  And when Elijah reformed and took on the Shape of the Primordial Deep, the dragons, drakes, and serpentors that made up the ship’s combatants finally responded.

After that, the battle became a rout.  As far as Elijah knew, there had only been a couple of casualties and no deaths. 

It was as thorough a victory as anyone could’ve hoped to achieve.  And what’s more, they’d rescued the Dravith demigods just in time.  Their leader – again, a dragon whose name he didn’t remember – had awoken a few hours later and demanded a meeting.

Elijah had ruined the vibe before it’d even started.

Liona took charge and got things back on track, and it only took a few minutes for the Dravith leader to explain everything that had happened.  Elijah didn’t miss that she was obviously devastated by the losses her people had experienced, and she didn’t look close to happy having been rescued.

Relieved, maybe, but not on a personal level.  She was very interested in how her people had been treated, though.

Apparently, participants in the trial usually ended up fighting one another as much as they fought against the enemies native to Orveth Kaal.  When Elijah thought about it, it made perfect sense too.  In a normal demigod trial, the orcs were much less of an issue.  That left the demigods plenty of time to plot against one another.

It wasn’t uncommon for entire factions to be wiped out.

Thankfully, the various leaders were more than willing to set those ideas aside and band together. 

Or so Elijah thought.

After the meeting, when Elijah and Imal headed outside to survey the damage and help with the clean-up, she explained something that put everything into harsh perspective.

“You think they’re going to stop fighting just because they’re fighting a war?” she asked.

“Uh…”

“Elijah, you can’t afford to be that naïve,” she said, sending out a wave of water that washed some orc bodies off the edge of the mountainous ship.  As they fell, she continued, “They’re still going to try to kill one another.  Especially when we get closer to the end of the trial.  I’d be surprised if the assassination attempts didn’t start up within a week.”

“Seriously?”

She shrugged. “That’s just how these things go.  It’s as much about fighting one another as it is about fighting the orcs or accomplishing the goals,” she answered.  “You do remember that they still get contribution points for killing each other, right?”

“Reduced,” he reminded her.

“Sure, but there’s also a lot of bad blood out there,” she continued to explain.  “Feuds between clans.  Old rivalries.  They can’t fight one another in the Empire.  The Scales of Peace would put a stop to that.  But here?  There aren’t any rules.  They can do whatever they want without consequence.”

That made some sort of sense.  “It’s still stupid, though,” Elijah said.  “If they just focused on what was important…”

“That is important to them.  Think about it, Elijah.  Every person here is tied to a clan.  And every clan exists relative to all the other clans.  As one rises, others fall.  The opposite is true as well,” she said.  “Some people will see this as a way to undermine the foundation upon which their rivals’ future will be built.”

“Sounds like a good way to get everyone killed,” he muttered.  “Maybe they’ll be smart enough to recognize that.”

“Unlikely.”

“They worked together to build the empire, right?”

“Do you know how many times the Empire of Scale has risen, only to fall? Usually to some sort of civil war?”

“A few?”

“More times than history can count.”

“So,  you’re saying that there’s no hope?”

“Not unless someone steps up and forces them all to work together,” she acknowledged.

“Is that a hint?” he asked.

Imal shook her head. “No.  Just a fact.  I know you’re not one to throw your weight around,” she said. “You don’t want to lead.  But sometimes, we need to do things we don’t want to do for the good of all.”

“Are you telling me to step up to the plate?”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Yeah, that tracks.  Can’t imagine baseball is much of a thing in the Empire of Scale,” Elijah sighed.

“That weird game you tried to explain to me?”

“Yeah.”

“What do plates have to do with it?”

Elijah shook his head and tried to explain what home plate was, but it soon became clear that, like most things baseball-related, one needed to see it to understand it. “It’s odd,” he said when it became obvious that he was wasting his time on the explanation.  “I wasn’t a huge sports guy before the world changed, but I kind of miss it.  It was always in the background.  You know, people talking about it.  TV commercials.  You know…but now, I wonder if any of those people even survived.  I know Lamar did, but I would’ve thought that more of them would’ve made it.”

Indeed, professional athletes were the cream of the crop from a physical perspective. Genetic freaks who knew how to push their bodies to the limit.  That Elijah had only met one – that he knew of – who’d been a famous athlete was surprising. 

“We have professional gladiators in the empire,” Imal said.  “For some, it’s the only way they’ll ever amount to anything.”

Then, she went on to describe that gladiatorial games usually followed the same sorts of rules that had governed the Tournament of the First Fang, in which they’d both participated.  However, instead of chronomancers, they used powerful Healers to ensure that most people survived.

“There are underground fights too.  Fewer rules.  More death,” she said.  “I went to one a few decades ago.  Brutal.”

“Didn’t have many people die playing baseball,” Elijah remarked.

Imal shook her head. “Probably better than our games, then.”

“So, what now?” Elijah asked after a few more minutes, during which they passed other people doing similar jobs.  For his part, Elijah could have just let the fungi living in his mushroom chamber snake its tendrils out to consume the ready supply of nutrients, but doing so would have produced a cloud of spores, preventing anyone else from walking the surface of the Vengeance.

It was why he’d put the new fungi cave thousands of miles away.  There, it wouldn’t be disturbed, and it wouldn’t kill anyone but orcs unlucky enough to land on that island.

Oddly, he could vaguely feel the fungus.  Not enough to know what it was up to or how it was doing, just that it was alive and in a specific direction.  He assumed the feeling would grow stronger the closer he got to it.

What that said about his bond with the fungus, Elijah had no idea.  But he’d decided to take it as a good thing.

“Now, you have a choice to make.  Go to the leaders and tell them what you expect.  Or just sit back and watch them tear each other apart from the shadows,” she answered.

Elijah’s shoulders slumped. “Do you think they can do much damage in…what do we have left? A couple of years?”

“A little more than thirty months.”

“Seems like it should be less.”

She shrugged. “That’s because you barely pay attention to time.”

Elijah couldn’t deny that.  He’d often go days without really acknowledging its passage.  On top of that, locking himself in a cave with only some mushrooms for company wasn’t the best way to keep track.  And finally, Orveth Kaal’s day-night cycle was much longer than Earth’s, which just contributed to the confusion. 

But at least it had a real sun instead of just ambient light, like some towers or Primal Realms he’d visited.

He did wonder if the sun was real, though.  If he wanted to, could he take on the Shape of the World Serpent and go find out?  He was very tempted, especially if it kept him from having to take on a leadership role.

He didn’t mind taking control.  What he did mind were all the headaches that would inevitably come with it.  The way he imagined it, it would be like group projects back in high school and college.  There would always be interpersonal drama, people who had their own agendas, and some others who simply wanted to be carried.

Maybe dragons were better than that, but Elijah’s experience with them suggested they’d probably be worse.

He sighed again.

“Fine.”

“Fine, what?”

“I’ll do it.  But I want you to know that I’m only doing it because you’re here.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“If you weren’t, I’d probably just go off on my own,” he admitted.  “Let them take care of themselves.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

Elijah shrugged.  “I’d definitely consider it.”

“You’d just leave Okar and Ikahj here all alone?  Furyo and Palikina?”

“Maybe,” Elijah lied.

“Face it, Elijah – you’re part of this.  May as well accept it, embrace the role you’ve been given, and make the best of it.”

“Sure,” he said.  “But first…how about you and I go on a little picnic?  We passed a nice, uninhabited island about twelve hours before we arrived at the Dravith Outpost.  We could fly over, having some alone time, and then when we get back, get to work?”

She smiled.

“That sounds like a nice plan.”