Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 26 - Implications (Patreon)

“You are just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Elijah didn’t even look up.  Instead, he stared over the edge of the cliff, looking down at the core.  It was barely visible.  No larger than a marble to his perception, but he could still feel its power lacing through the atmosphere.  It held everything together as surely as gravity held Earth in orbit around the sun.

“I thought you were in prison,” Elijah said.

“This entire world is my prison,” said the Poet.  “Within these confines, I go where I wish.”

“Good for you.”

“Insolent whelp.”

“Old asshole,” Elijah grunted.  It was the first time he’d ever insulted the Poet to his face, and he half expected the transcendent to murder him, then and there.  Instead, the strongest dragon in known existence just chuckled.

“I suppose I am,” he admitted, sitting next to Elijah.  His legs dangled over the edge, and his beard whipped in the wind.  “This is more pleasant than I expected.”

“Solitude makes it better.”

“You really are in quite the mood today, aren’t you?”

“I think I deserve it.”

“Ah, it’s self-pity, then.  That, I understand better than most.”

Elijah considered a response, but soon realized that nothing he could say would make much of a difference.  The Poet had a point.  He’d spent countless years imprisoned in the ancestral world, all because he had made a mistake. 

“If you could go back, would you change anything?” Elijah asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Love, whelp.  Love.  We do not discard it just because it leaves us scarred,” he answered.  “That is what makes it worthwhile.”

Elijah just shook his head.

“Do you know what you did?” the Poet asked after a moment.

“Vaguely.”

That was a bit of an understatement.  The notification he’d received from the system spelled it out plainly enough. 

You have chosen to forfeit a portion of your potential to bolster the core of a disciple.  As they grow, you will recoup your investment.

“Would it interest you to know that I have never met a demigod who created a half-scale?” the Poet asked.  “Nor have I ever known a half-scale who could manage it at all. Not deities.  Not even transcendents.  What you have done is likely unprecedented in all of draconic history.”

“Yay.”

Elijah couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the result.  Part of that came from the fact that he’d given up a piece of himself to support the young orc.  It wasn’t just a part of his cultivation.  Nor was it limited to his potential.  He somehow felt less real than he had before the event. 

In the words of one of his favorite novels, like butter scraped over too much bread.  Or maybe that was just in the movie adaptation.

But he could deal with that without getting mopey.  The real problem was that, despite everything he’d done, Makit was slowly dying.  For all that the baby was healthy, he was also much too strong for her to support.  Her system – both biological and metaphysical – struggled to meet the child’s demands.  And it was slowly failing in that endeavor.

She was going to die before birth, mostly because of that child’s strength, but also because Elijah had unwittingly extended the gestation period.  The baby should’ve already been born, but now, it needed more time to grow into the core he’d granted.  That disparity would kill Makit.

Elijah suspected she would survive long enough to carry the baby to viability, but by then, the toll would have been claimed.  She would die.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Oh, how he’d tried, too.  After awakening, he’d employed every trick he could think of.  He funneled vitality into her.  He fed her.  He even did what he could to replicate prenatal vitamins. 

Nothing had worked.

The worst part was that she didn’t seem to blame him.  Instead, she only wanted to know that her baby was healthy, and as Elijah had gotten to know her, she had focused on how he would be a great leader of orcs. 

The difference between her maternal instincts now and after a child’s birth should have been fascinating to behold.  But now?  It just felt bitter.

Making it even worse was Ok’tarik’s reaction. 

If orcs were capable of love, then the warchief definitely felt that towards Makit.  He doted on her, bringing her food and drink and ensuring that she had everything she needed to remain comfortable.  He’d also thanked Elijah for what he’d done, and for good reason.  Neither of them knew precisely what it meant for the child’s future, but they could both sense that he would be born different from other orcs.

Stronger?  Almost certainly.

It was a monumental thing, and by anyone’s measure, a success.

But he could see the despair behind Ok’tarik’s eyes.  Elijah had lost enough loved ones to know what those little looks meant. 

It had all combined into a bittersweet couple of weeks.  Success, but at a steep cost.  That seemed to be the order of Elijah’s life.  Nothing was ever free, as he continuously discovered.

“You feel the hole in your spirit, do you not?”

Elijah nodded.

The Poet added, “Day by day, you will notice it less and less.  Eventually, it will close altogether.”

“Will it affect my power?”

“Perhaps.  Likely not, though if it does, the effect will present itself in the form of slowed cultivation.  You’re so young, and talented enough that it probably won’t be enough to notice, though.”

“You speak from experience?” asked Elijah, finally glancing at the Poet.  He looked just as old as ever, with a beard that descended past his waist.  Otherwise, he looked a bit like a beggar, with ragged clothes and unkempt hair. 

There was power about him, though.  More than Elijah could rightly sense.  It was as if a vast and terrible ocean raged beneath the surface of his façade. 

“I have granted many cores throughout my life.  One, to my beloved.”

“How did that work out?”

“Poorly.  Though that has little to do with her race,” the Poet answered.  “Orcs are wild and savage, but they are no less civilized than any other.  They simply do not choose to hide their natures.”

“The system clearly believes otherwise.”

“Ah.  That.”

“That.  Why does the system treat them so poorly?  They’re dangerous, but…”

“No more than any other race.  After all, dragons very nearly consumed the entire multi-verse,” the Poet reminded him.  “The Ravager.  Oh, how I loathe that name.  I choose to refer to him as Akar.  He should have been the best among us.  Perhaps he still believes he is, and that we are all misguided.  Do you know he once offered to help me?  He sent an emissary who spoke with his voice.”

The Poet sighed, then wistfully added, “He offered so much more, too.”

“What is he like?”

“A mountain among the plains.  Reality amidst a sea of illusions.  He is a physical law of the multi-verse.  Fighting him is useless.”

“You make it sound hopeless,” Elijah remarked.  For so long, he’d thought that was the end goal.  Fighting against the Ravener – and defeating the one once known as Akar – was the win condition for the entire multi-verse.  Hearing the Poet speak of him left Elijah doubting that such a victory was even possible, much less likely.

It was a depressing thought.

“For me? It is.  I could no more defeat Akar than an ant could threaten me.”

“Then what’s the point?”  Elijah asked.  The Poet’s position as one of, if not the strongest dragons in the Empire of Scale meant he was one of the most powerful entities in all of existence.  If the gap between him and the Ravener was so wide, then no one stood a chance.

“That is a question the founders of the system asked.  Even then, he was too powerful to oppose.  The only one keeping him in check was the World Tree,” the Poet explained.  “I suppose you can guess at their solution.”

Elijah shook his head.

“You disappoint me.  Think.  Figure it out.”

Elijah frowned, then turned to glare at the planet’s core.  For a few moments, neither he nor the Poet said a word.  Instead, Elijah lost himself in thought as he considered the problem at hand.

After a couple of minutes, he said, “The system powers the World Tree.”

It had been on his mind for a while, the reality that people post-system were weaker than they should have been.  His visions of the past had confirmed as much.  Back then, there were many more transcendents, and even those beneath that tier seemed much stronger.

Then came the system, which was a magical construct that bordered on sapience on its own.  Nothing like that could function without significant energy.  It only took a small leap of logic for Elijah to settle on the idea that, while the system served to codify everything and empower people to survive, it also took a fee.

That made progress slower but safer.

It also fueled the World Tree’s expansion, which brought more people under its umbrella.  In turn, those people contributed to further growth.

It was a perfect system for its continued empowerment.

The only question was why, with all that power at its disposal, the World Tree had failed to defeat the Ravener.  Elijah explained his answer, then asked that one all-important question.

The answer was as simple as it was frustrating.

“Nature,” replied the Poet.  “None of us can escape it.  We all feel our instincts weighing every choice.  Every decision comes only after filtering through our most basic traits.  The World Tree, for all its power, is no different.  Perhaps even more subject to its instincts, because at the end of the day, it is still just a tree.  And it functions according to its most important mandate – growth.  Eternal, uncompromising growth.”

Then, he added, “It is not a weapon.  At best, it is a shield.  In their fallible wisdom, the system’s founders believed their creation would be temporary.  A means to buy them a little time so they could defeat Akar before returning everything to normal.  They were wrong.

“Now, I fear that if such a victory were to be achieved, it would be the end of everything.”

Elijah nodded along, both horrified and impressed.  He’d felt some small sliver of the World Tree, and though he knew it was far more powerful than he could imagine, he also recognized that its consciousness was so alien that it barely even seemed sapient.  It was.  He knew that.  It just functioned precisely as one might expect from a self-aware tree.

Slow.  Methodical.  Driven toward a singular goal. 

That was what it meant to be a tree.

It also made the World Tree a poor weapon against the Ravener while simultaneously functioning as a great defense against the advances of the abyss.  The partnership with the system was just there to fill the proverbial gaps and fit what amounted to a square peg into a round hole.

It was no more than a patch.

Not a real fix.

And as such, the entire thing was destined to fail.  Not soon, Elijah knew.  Maybe not for many of his expanded lifetimes.  But eventually.  That was what happened when someone used the wrong tool.  The system’s creators clearly knew that, but they also recognized that there were no other tools available.

“What does this have to do with orcs?” Elijah asked.

“Very little, save that one of the founders of the system hated them,” the Poet explained.  “With a passion rarely seen.  I do not doubt they had their reasons.  Orcs have ever been an aggressive people.  But I have never believed that what was done to them was warranted.”

“Do you know which one?” Elijah asked.

“You think to hold them accountable?”

Elijah shrugged.  “Maybe.”

The Poet laughed.  “Perhaps you could.  Too bad they are long dead.  All of the founders are.”

“So there’s no one in charge?”

“The system.”

Elijah shook his head.  It seemed like a bad idea to leave that up to what amounted to a complex machine. 

“Perhaps one day someone can change that,” said the Poet.  “Do not neglect the child.  It carries a part of you, meant to be nurtured.  Do not fail.”

Then, without another word, the Poet simply vanished, leaving Elijah alone on that cliff with only his thoughts for company.