A Tyrant, Sort Of

The forest zoomed by in a blur. Like with might, grace was her weakest stat, but two hundred was still an appreciable amount. Leaves and branches crunched underfoot as she sprinted across the forest, jumping over logs and weaving between trees and foliage with supernatural grace. It was an exhilarating experience, reminding her of her first time flying.

Then her foot snagged on something, and she went tumbling across the forest floor in a pile of limbs.

Fortunately, her constitution meant only her pride was bruised. With a huff, she stood and cleaned the leaves and dirt that had buried into her robes and hair.

During her first transformation, she’d spawned in with an immaculate appearance. Unfortunately, like with her clothes, her current state persisted between transformations; the dirt caking her skin, and the accruing tangles in her hair, wouldn’t just go away. She would need some grooming supplies unless she wanted to look like a wild animal. Which, obviously, wasn’t on the table. It would be wholly unbefitting a Queen. Or perhaps Empress? What title did she want to claim, anyway?

She shelved the topic. It was a significant decision—not something to be chosen simply in the moment.

For a while longer, Sable tested the extent of her improved agility. She’d hardly been an acrobat in her past life, but now she could scramble up trees, swing between branches, and generally maneuver in a way she’d never been able to before. There were limits, of course, as her tumble had proven, but her body obeyed her mind in a way it never had.

It was exhilarating. She had already spent time appreciating her strength and abilities as a dragon, but it felt different having arms and legs again. Like she’d been given superpowers. She played around in the dense wilderness for longer than appropriate, marveling at her new abilities. While not functional—she was certainly not combat ready against opponents of the caliber she’d been fighting previously—it was still fascinating to experience her newfound dexterity.

When she’d gotten her fill, there was one last major aspect of her body that needed to be tested. It was, of course, the crown jewel of everything. Her capabilities with magic.

She couldn’t get carried away, since her mana still dwindled unfortunately low, and even with [Recuperate] remained an annoying resource to manage. Roman had indicated mana management was just as much of a problem for mages across the world, and that it wasn’t just a her problem. There were expensive mana potions to help in crucial situations, but they gave flat bonuses. Since Sable’s mana pool was so enormous, they were near useless on her. Which was an entitled complaint to have, Sable knew, that her mana pool was so enormous that even mana potions couldn’t help.

Seeing how Sable had only survived her encounter against the Lesser Aspect, and thus wasn’t a walking, possessed tool of a deranged cultist, by using nearly the entirety of her mana pool, she wanted to regenerate that resource back to full as soon as possible, so she was braced for another such encounter—however unlikely.

That said, she could spare a few points to get a feel for how much the ability had changed in her human form.

To avoid starting an accidental wildfire, Sable transformed and flew back to Lake Plateglass. Frostfire wasn’t as flammable as outright spewing molten flame from her mouth, but it was more than capable of igniting the surroundings. Fortunately, the trace amounts created during her form-shift weren’t significant enough to worry about.

Back at her island, she transformed and settled onto her hoard, [Recuperate] kicking in passively. She was pleased to see that she didn’t need to be in dragon form for that skill to work. Would she heal and regain mana even faster, since her pools were smaller? She doubted it. If anything, intuition told her she could more fully bask in her treasure while in dragon form.

Regardless, she might as well earn a trickle of regeneration while playing with her modified spellcasting abilities. So she sat on her hoard. Perching on the piled collection of valuables wasn’t as easy as a human. It was a rather bumpy seat.

Situating herself, she reached out for that bubbling pool of energy. She had halfway expected it to feel different in some way, but the process was identical. At least until actual spell formation began, and she started etching mana into a spell circle followed by the appropriate runes.

The benefits of her increased spell dexterity became immediately noticeable. Even with all her practice over the past days, her line work had remained shaky—not nearly on the level of Roman’s elegant drawings, who had undoubtedly been casting for many years. But while the runes Sable brought to life weren’t on the level of Roman’s, wrangling mana had never been easier. It was like before she’d been trying to draw her spell circles with a heavy, vibrating metal pen, and now she’d been given a paintbrush. Burning lines of energy imprinted into the air with an elegance that surprised even her.

That improvement had several implications. First, it meant she could tackle more complex spells without them destabilizing or becoming prohibitively costly. Secondly, simpler spells, like the ones she already employed, would be stronger per mana point funneled into them.

Though, that second part didn’t take into account her halved intellect and wisdom stats. Without a doubt, cutting the main spellcasting stats in half would reduce her potential power output more than smoother lines improved it. The true benefit of this form was that spells simply out of her reach might now be possible.

Seeing how Sable needed to learn how to cast powerful warding spells to prevent diviners from tracking her down, her halfdragon form had a real tactical purpose, even if it wouldn’t be the body she used in most fights.

Completing her first spell, she funneled twelve points of mana in and sent the [Frostfire Spear] rocketing forward, aimed for the lake. It impacted the glassy surface of the water and exploded. Water simultaneous boiled and froze over, shifting states in a brief chaos before settling, the energy expended.

The spear had been slower, and far smaller than what she was used to throwing out. But, she suspected, far from weak when compared to what a level ten humanoid could normally produce. And that wasn’t counting her gigantic mana pool; if she were at full capacity, she could afford to use much more of that resource, and thus amplify her spells to a higher degree. So Sable would more than be able to handle herself in a dungeon of equivalent level, and possible even one a full tier higher.

She experimented for half an hour with low mana applications of various spells, familiarizing herself with her new spell dexterity. She also tried out some of the spells Roman had been helping her with that had been beyond her ability—namely with her enchant keyrune. Illusions had been nightmarishly difficult to wrangle, even at their most basic level, but Sable managed a few distortions of color and light, which was far more than she could before, though still ultimately failures. She suspected that was half her own fault, and half Roman’s—in the sense that the necromancer meant it when she said it wasn’t a specialty of hers, and so her guidance was only a few degrees better than fumbling around by herself.

Eventually, she didn’t have more to test. Her human body’s limitations were about as she expected them to be. Her improved spell dexterity might be more beneficial than she’d hoped for, but neither was it some cheat code to casting any complex spell she desired. She still needed to find tutors and contacts in a human city—Wastehaven, most likely.

Seated on top of her hoard, Sable looked around at all the objects comprising her collection. Much of it was metal bars or other raw valuables, but plenty was adventuring equipment of the heirloom type—valuable to the people of Skatikk for historical reasons, otherwise it would have been kept in the armory rather than the treasury. She scanned through a few of the items, appraising the stats and bonuses they offered. Some seemed pretty useful.

She still needed to get a better idea of how items and adventuring worked. Not only because it affected her directly, since she had a human form now, but because the Slayer’s Guild subsection of the Adventurer’s Guild was the single greatest threat to her. Or, more accurately, the one most likely to pursue her without explicit reason. And knowing the enemy was important.

The basics of items she had learned from Aylin from casual chat over the past week, but there were still holes in her knowledge. She considered rummaging through the collection of goblin loot and picking out ones that would aid her, but she temporarily put the idea off. She had zero intentions of using this form in real combat for some time, and few of the items seemed mage-focused regardless. It was worth handling at some point, but not right now.

And she’d rather have a talk with Roman and Aylin about the details behind how magical gear worked, just in case. Maybe one of the items she put on would be cursed, or perhaps bind itself to her, unable to be taken off. Lacking an immediate reason to outfit herself, she would simply wait.

For now, she had a hoard she wanted to relocate to safety—and possibly some nasty cave-dwelling mountain creatures who would protest their sudden eviction.