Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 23 - Results are Results (Patreon)

It was almost comical, if it wasn’t so tragic.

Ok’tarik strode forward, fully trusting that the gate would allow him through.  That wasn’t what happened, though.  Instead, it looked like he’d walked into a brick wall.  He was more than capable of maintaining his balance, but the sudden stop took him by surprise.  He stumbled – only a little, but enough that Elijah almost chuckled at the absurdity of it all.

Yet, he couldn’t escape the reality before him.

Neither could the orc.

He looked back at Elijah, pain and disappointment plain on his face.  It didn’t take long for that to become rage.  Surprisingly, Ok’tarik didn’t turn that anger on Elijah.  Instead, he pointed it toward the gate itself.  The orc wheeled around and hammered his fist into the solid surface.  The impact sent a shockwave across the entire chamber, sweeping the cloud of violet spores aside.

He hit it again, even harder.

Over and over again, each time with more force.  Elijah could feel Ok’tarik’s muscles swelling with ethera and vitality.  But no matter how hard he hit the thing, it did no good.  The gate wouldn’t budge.

What’s more, Elijah could feel that it was permeable.  If he’d wanted to, he could have simply walked through. 

But Ok’tarik clearly couldn’t, and after ten or fifteen seconds, the reason became apparent.  That final impact prompted a response.  For the first time, he felt the presence of the system, and not as some metaphysical thing that worked in the background.  It was a physical thing that blanketed the entire chamber.

Ok’tarik fell to his knees.

Elijah saw the orc’s muscles bulging as he fought against incalculable pressure.  The warchief’s efforts were to no avail.  Instead, he gradually gave way to ever-increasing weight until, at last, his bones began to break.  Soon enough, they snapped altogether.  Still, Ok’tarik managed to remain upright through sheer force of will and undeniable vitality.

That lasted three more seconds.

Until, at last, even Ok’tarik collapsed into a heap of broken bones.  Elijah rushed forward, already casting all three of his heals simultaneously.  The system fought against him, covering him in a dense mesh of restrictive ethera that he could scarcely sense, much less counter.

Elijah fell, too.

But then, something welled up inside him.  Something he could neither identify nor understand.  Not in the moment, at least.  His armor erupted in green flames as ethera surged forth from his core.  It slammed against the system’s restrictions.  Once.  Twice.  Three times.

It didn’t budge.

Not until the ninth iteration, at which point Elijah became a vessel for something he could only refer to as all-powerful.  It nearly scorched his mind and soul, but his cultivation proved just durable enough to maintain the integrity of his personal system.

The system’s presence cracked.  Just a tiny break, but that led to a spiderweb of rifts that shattered the whole thing after only a second.  Then, it retreated, but not before tearing Elijah’s Root Nexus gate asunder.

An unnatural quiet spread across the chamber, broken only by Ok’tarik’s groans of agony.  Elijah answered them with his own labored breathing.  He’d broken bones before.  He had even obliterated his entire body.  But he’d never shattered his entire skeleton, all at once.

He lay there, his body barely more consistent than jelly.  He could feel his organs struggling to maintain their integrity, and the only reason he wasn’t dead was because of his ongoing healing spells.

Laboriously, Elijah pieced himself back together.

It was a long way from easy.  In fact, it was one of the most difficult tasks he had ever undertaken.  Yet, he had plenty of experience doing whatever was necessary to survive.  Thankfully, his gold-tier body also came with a significant degree of regenerative ability, and it maintained a blueprint of itself, etched into every cell. 

The result was that Elijah didn’t need to meticulously guide his healing.  Instead, he only needed to show it the way.

Even so, it was no quick process.

Days passed, with only Ok’tarik’s barely conscious form for company.

When Elijah managed to repair himself enough to sit up, he began to work on his companion.  If Elijah looked like he’d been run over by a train, then Ok’tarik appeared as if he’d been thrust into the center of a black hole. His powerful body was entirely formless, and like Elijah, the only reason he was still alive was because of the ongoing Blessing of the Grove, Wellspring, and the more focused Nature’s Bloom. 

Elijah got to work.

His own body continued to heal without his input, but Ok’tarik wouldn’t reform unless Elijah guided the vitality more meticulously.  As he did so, he recognized that it gave him the opportunity to study the orc’s system in better depth.  Not to let such a chance go to waste, Elijah embarked upon a journey of exploration and healing.

Orc anatomy wasn’t so different from that of humans, save that it ran on ethera as much as it did biology.  They were magical creatures just as much as a world serpent.  Just as much as Elijah now was.

Otherwise, the organs were all in the right place.  The bones were sturdier than a human’s, and the muscles denser.  However, the general idea remained the same.  Still, studying Ok’tarik’s anatomy was informative.

Eventually, Ok’tarik regained a higher tier of consciousness, and he began to harvest the local vitality to bolster his own healing.  Because of that, he recovered far more quickly than Elijah had. 

Anger simmered beneath Ok’tarik’s otherwise calm façade, though he didn’t give it voice.  Not until Elijah asked what had happened.

“The system,” he growled.  Then, he read Elijah a notification that stated what he’d already begun to suspect.  It said:

Escape from Orveth Kaal is not permitted without appropriate tokens.  Continued resistance will be met with more stringent enforcement.

“Shit,” Elijah muttered. 

He recognized the issue immediately.  Without escape as a reward, Ok’tarik had little reason to ally with Elijah.  Indeed, doing so would be detrimental, especially considering that the win conditions for the orcs meant fighting and killing dragons.  That included Elijah and, oddly enough, the entire Earth expedition.

The system considered them participants in the trial, after all. 

And as such, they were the orcs’ enemies.

However, Ok’tarik didn’t react the way Elijah expected him to.  Instead of raging and starting a fight, the orc simply collapsed, as limp as he’d been after the system had turned his bones to dust.

The issue was obvious.

He had lost hope.

And Elijah didn’t blame him.  He was a prisoner, just as surely as those jailed in the cells that dotted Orveth Kaal.  More so, because he and his people had no hope of escape.  Sure, they could trickle through a few at a time, but only if they managed to claim victory in a couple of trials in a row. 

Yet, that wasn’t a source of hope.  Not with the restrictions the system would inflict upon them.

Not for the first time, Elijah began to wonder if the system was truly a good thing.  It helped people survive the integration, and presumably, it allowed them to resist the Ravener and his abyssal forces.  But it was also restrictive in a way that Elijah didn’t fully understand. 

With the orcs, it was worse.

They clearly had the capacity for sapience.  In the wild, they likely would’ve already achieved it.  And yet, the system classified them differently.  They were no better than monsters.  Pests.  Creatures to be used when possible, then eradicated when necessary. 

It was no wonder that Ok’tarik had lost hope.

Elijah might have as well, had their situations been reversed.

However, he wasn’t one to accept defeat.  So, as they continued to heal from the system’s attack, Elijah turned his mind to the task at hand.  How could he help the orcs?  Partly, that desire stemmed from survival instinct.  So long as the orcs had hope, they would do what he needed them to do.

But Elijah also wanted to help them because it felt like the right thing to do.  Ok’tarik wasn’t a friend.  Far from it.  But they understood one another.  What’s more, the orc might’ve been wholly unique among his people.  Even if other sapient orcs existed, Ok’tarik was different.

Better.

More thoughtful.

He felt almost human at times.

Never was that truer than when he’d worried for his child’s future.  Ultimately, that was what drove Elijah.  He wanted to build a better life for that unborn orcish child.  And maybe, given his ally some degree of peace of mind.

“I have an idea.”

“I am finished with your ideas, dragon.”

“What if I could save your child?” Elijah asked.

“You can not.  No one can.  The system restricts us all.  It imprisons us.  It turns us into playthings for its favored people,” Ok’tarik spat.  “I should kill you all.  Then, it would have no choice but to acknowledge us.”

“Haven’t you been trying that this whole time?”

“Some have escaped.”

“Into worlds where they were used as tests for newly integrated people,” Elijah stated.  “Did I tell you that I fought your kind before I came to Orveth Kaal?”

Ok’tarik didn’t answer.

So, Elijah went on to describe what he’d found on his home world, only a few short years after the World Tree had extended its branches to Earth.  He talked about how the orcs had been transformed by the system, devolved and depowered.  In the end, he said, “They might have even come from Orveth Kaal.  I don’t know.”

“Why do you tell me this?  To make me understand that the system hates us?  I know that better than you do, dragon.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then why?”

“Because I want you to know that any hope, no matter how far-fetched or unlikely to bear fruit, is better than what you’re doing now,” Elijah answered.  “This isn’t working.  It can’t work.  The system is against you.  It won’t let you succeed.”

“What is your point?” Ok’tarik asked.

“That if we can’t make the system acknowledge orcs as you are, then we have no choice but to change,” Elijah answered. “I had hoped it would see you as the next step in orcish evolution, but I was wrong.  There’s something missing, and I think I know what it is.”

“Sapience?  I have already achieved this,” Ok’tarik pointed out.  Elijah had had a time getting the orc to understand it as more than just him being different han the rest of his race, but in the end, he’d grasped the concept.

“No,” Elijah said.  “What you’re missing is something more fundamental.  I want to connect you to the World Tree itself.”

“How?  Why would that work?”

It was a valid question.  The how of it was easier to answer, and Elijah explained what he could do with Dictate of the World Tree.  The spell was clearly intended for plants, but Elijah had proven he could make it work on beasts.  Rosabella’s crab was evidence enough that it could work.

The why was more difficult to address, but it stemmed from what Elijah had felt after the system descended.  It would have killed them both.  He had no doubt of that.  The only reason it hadn’t was because something had stopped it.  And Elijah was familiar enough with the World Tree’s essence to identify it.

It had stopped the system from killing Ok’tarik and, by extension, Elijah.

He’d always known that they were two separate entities.  The system and the World Tree were intertwined, but unique.  Now, he had confirmation that they could work at cross purposes.

And as an Emerald Archon, he felt that he was in a perfect position to force it to take a side. 

He explained as much to Ok’tarik, going into detail as to his experiences and his unique relationship with the World Tree.  For his part, the orc was more than a little skeptical of whether or not it would work, but at the end of the day, he was desperate. 

“Go ahead.  Work your magic, dragon,” Ok’tarik said, having fully recovered.

“It won’t work.”

“Do not play games with me!  You just said –”

“You’re too fully formed.  I need a…fresher subject.  I need…your child.”

Elijah never even saw the punch coming before it collided with his jaw.