Adamant Blood

"So that happened," Mark said.

Getting a meeting with Aurora had taken 10 minutes and bumping someone else down the line. Mark didn't know who he bumped —could have been any of the guys out there, and it might have been all of them— only that it happened, and then Aurora's secretary told Mark to head on in, so he did.

Mark had started to explain, but then Aurora requested the recording, if Mark had one. Quark had recorded all of the conversation with Rekaro as a matter of course, and so Aurora listened to the conversation, and now they were here.

Mark sat in the guest chair in Aurora's nice office.

Aurora sat in her own chair, slumped, one hand over her face, messing up her rainbow-white hair. Her eyes were closed. She was wincing and contemplating and thinking very big, and very deep thoughts, and it had all started when Rekaro mentioned Second Princess Walaria. It had gotten worse right afterward, when the Grand Mage mentioned that the Second Princess was the direct oversight for Aurora, and then there was the recommendation to talk to Aurora herself.

And now she sat like that until here, the end.

Mark added, "And then I flew out of there instead of taking the proper way out, triggered the illusion barrier, and I told Quark to send a 'fuck you' in regards to their billion-goldleaf fine."

"Of course you did," Aurora said, speaking for the first time.

Mark waited.

Aurora breathed deep, sat up, and told Mark, "Okay, so… Second Princess Walaria is…" She paused. She said, "Eliot met her, right? What was his impression?"

"Like she was a dragon in human form, and probably a witch, and he never wanted to be anywhere near her ever again if he could help it. That was months ago, though. Almost half a year."

Aurora instantly said, "Walaria's personality doesn't get better with time. What does happen is that she figures out how to get what she wants better. Easier. And then what she wants from you will be exactly what you will want to give her. And then you'll start to shine, Mark, and you won't want to stop for a long time. She will magnify your life and shine your light onto the Empire to the best of her and your ability. She is intense. If you can handle your life being made larger, then this is a good thing and you should do it."

Mark focused on what he wanted. On the future. And then he asked a simple question, "Will she help me kill all monsters?"

"… Oh my gods, Mark— Uh…" Aurora took a moment. Then she said, "When I was your age, there was this dragon poking out from the Southern Crossing every other week and harassing travelers. It was a pretty common thing back then. Everyone was busy and Tokyo and the Sahara were doing as much as they could for trade between the Two Worlds. But then that dragon killed one of my friends, and I took that personally. I knew, by then, that saying anything at all about that around Walaria would start a crusade, but I was ready for that. I said some things and I ended up staking out both Crossings, via long range teleporters that cost a billion goldleaf per teleport, and killing 36 dragons over the next year. From there Walaria set up a whole organization for me, using tens of her people… it was a very large part of my life. I ended up becoming the most well known dragonslayer in the Two Worlds because of my decision to speak to her about my desire to kill a single dragon that had killed my friend…

"So.

"There you are," Aurora finished. And then, with a great big afterthought, Aurora gestured at the office around her and all of the settlement in the process, adding, "And here we are. The dragons don't kill too many transports between the Two Worlds these days but there are still kaiju in the Crossings. It's still dangerous. So that's why I wanted to do this Twin City thing. I have no idea where your desire to kill all monsters will lead you. And there's still the problem of Addavein to consider. Do you want to kill him? Will she try to work through you to get him working under her? Who knows! Addashield was a great ally of the Empire, even if they did seem at odds most of the time. All I know is that I try to stay away from Walaria. She's… intense."

Mark felt the weight of Aurora's serious vector upon him, the strength of her words, and Mark wondered about a lot.

… Also, he felt a bit better about Walaria.

A lot better, actually.

… it was the same way he felt about Addashield, before his truth was revealed, but even now… Mark's feelings on Addavein were complicated. So very complicated.

… But Mark wanted the power to change the world, right?

Is this how he got that power?

Mark was thinking about being imprisoned for being adamant blooded, as he asked, "She's a Witch, right? Soft power?"

"She's not as bad as her mother, Empress Cataclysm the Seventh. She would have put you into a farm, for sure," Aurora said, vector focused. "Never become better off dead than alive for Cataclysm. She will cut you down before you realize you are cut. She culled Mother's entire family, save for Mother. She doesn't mind if you think about killing her back, though. She respects that these days, to a point. Walaria is… sort of the same way. Since I can see you thinking about actually doing this then we'll have a lot more conversations about a lot, Mark, since we'll probably end up as dependents together… Or maybe you'll just be a rank 3! Haaaaa..." Aurora was tired as she said, "This is probably the best way for you to be integrated into the Empire, though."

"They won't try to put me in an adamantium farm?" Mark asked.

"Emperor Salvation ended those farms himself. I'm not saying that it wouldn't have happened if they could have gotten away with it, but that ship has flown. Integrating yourself through Walaria would ensure that would not happen."

Ah, shit.

Mark was really considering this.

In fact, he had already made up his mind this morning, hadn't he.

Ah, fuck. He had.

Mark asked, "Do you think I will be thanking you for this in 15 years?"

"Cheeky brat," Aurora said, chuckling a little… And then she looked past Mark, her rainbow eyes going distant, as her vector vanished deeply inward. The light flickered around her, reality twisting on tiny streamers in the air. She reminisced and thought. And then she came back. Fractured reality vanished into her astral body. She looked at Mark, and told him, "Yes."

"Good enough for me. Thank you, Aurora."

Aurora nodded.

Mark left, and then flew through the sky, back to Mage Society, to pierce the illusions again and land at the quad, right in front of the arcanaeum. Red lights flickered all around him, lingering from his time through the barrier. Students looked his way, some of them disbelieving that what they were seeing was real, some of them with cameras out and recording, even though professors were yelling at them about cameras in the Society. Some enforcers in mage robes were rushing this way, but they stopped as the flickering warning lights around Mark suddenly broke.

Bertrand, the guard from earlier, stood at the top of the stairs with a tiny wand in his hand. He had shot the warning lights around Mark and dissipated them, turning off the alarm. He did that because he respected Mark, and he felt he was making up for his improper treatment last time, but he still glared at Mark, demanding, "Really?!"

Mark smiled. "Really."

Mark might have said something else, but he could feel all the way through the compound, and Rekaro was already headed this way. Mark decided to save his words for Tartu's father, instead. But then there was another vector. It was a small thing, right beside Rekaro, and Mark almost didn't notice it before that moment, but then Rekaro had something of a conniption fit before he turned surprised and deferential—

Another vector appeared a lot closer to Mark. Right to his left.

Suddenly, there at the footsteps leading into the arcanaeum, at the end of the street of shops and libraries and students looking Mark's way, Reeni Thumb appeared, stepping out of nowhere to look at Mark and align with him. She barely came up to Mark's chest. No lights flowed around her, which told Mark a few things. Either she was already in here, or there were ways through the illusion curtain without triggering the lingering lights and the alarm system.

Mark imagined the second scenario was more likely.

She informed him, "You're swinging into the big arena."

"We like to have fun around here."

Reeni snorted. "I expected you to come around for more lessons from me."

"You said your lessons would be given on your own schedule," Mark said, adding, "And I was busy, too."

Reeni was calm as she nodded. She had no more words. She looked forward, toward the arcanaeum doors up the stairs. Mark waited. He supposed he and Reeni stood together, though Mark wasn't sure about that.

And then there was a woman, maybe 35. 40-ish. Red hair, green and pink professional dress, like something a fancy woman would wear to go to the bank in an HVP production. Her eyes stared at Mark, and Mark felt like he was looking at a kaiju.

Yeah.

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This was Second Princess Walaria Aluatha, for sure. Just as Eliot described.

Mark grinned. His armor sharpened and his scales flexed for more coverage.

Walaria smirked, and then she took a step toward Mark, and she got younger. She took another step and years fell away from her face, from her body. She took another step and her professional pink and green dress changed into dark green hunting leathers with black accents, and her bright red hair flexed into a loose ponytail. Another step brought her to the top of the stairs, and she was 30. A few more steps brought her down to the same level as Mark, and she was 25. Maybe a little younger.

Rekaro remained behind, steadily holding his post and doing nothing else.

Reeni Thumb huffed in annoyance at Walaria.

Walaria ignored Reeni and asked Mark, "Wanna find out who put that turtle kaiju on the path toward the settlement? And when that's done we can talk about books and Mage Society. Other than that, I have nothing else planned right now. Maybe we'll do something again in 2 or 3 months."

Mark paused.

Walaria was focused, her vector small, but probably only because she made it small. She was here and she wanted to go out and solve a problem, and then leave. She viewed Mark as a piece on a chess board, and if he played along, she would use him to do great things.

She was intense.

Aurora had said as much, hadn't she?

In light of everything he was seeing, feeling, and aware that there were probably some shenanigans afoot, Mark chose anyway to say, "Yes."

Walaria grinned. "Excellent! Spin that propeller back up, give me a handle, and let's go investigate the remains and the cave!"

… Was this really happening, this fast?

… Mark spun his tri-toroid back overhead, flexed his rotor out to the side, and made a seat and handle out of the adamantium scales of his stomach and legs. He floated the seat toward Walaria.

Walaria grinned as she sat down and grabbed the handle, saying, "Let's go to the turtle, first. Where the module used to be."

Mark spun up his blades and went flying, easily carrying Walaria's weight like she wasn't even there.

When Mark got past the illusionary barrier, beyond the quiet turrets and into the skies over the settlement, he asked Walaria, "Are you actually here? Do I need to worry about protecting you?"

"I am 100% here and you 100% do not have to worry about protecting me at all." The Second Princess pointed toward the turtle kaiju's scattered parts on the other side of the Shine. "Let's go catch some bad guys!"

Mark had no idea why she wanted to go over there, because people were already investigating the problem, and there was nothing left of the control module, but he did not say any of that. He told Quark, "File a flight plan, please, Quark." And then Mark got flying in that direction.

Quark beeped out a confirmation.

Soon, Mark passed over the castles, and then far over the gate, which was 550 meters tall at its tallest point and the largest structure in the area, and then out into the sky beyond the settlement's walls. A tributary exited the walls behind him to flow across war torn lands filled with blighted trees and craters where people like Mark and others had destroyed every dead thing that populated the area.

The black death fires were long gone, but their scars remained.

The Shine, Daihoon's Mississippi River, was the same as it ever was; kilometers wide and varied between murky brown and almost clear, but only for the first several meters. It was dark water down there. With Unionsense, Mark could tell a lot was down there, fighting for life as either predator or prey, or hiding from everything and trying to survive. A lot of things were feasting, actually. Gorging.

The Ether Turtle's shell lay everywhere, like a broken egg shell, but the bottom half, most of it, was straight ahead. Working theory was that the controller module triggered something inside, exploding the turtle outward. A lot of things were nibbling on all of that flesh, or at least the parts that weren't filled with death mana. Most of the problem of the kaiju's corpse was self-solving; whatever ate it died. Sometimes, though, things were born of that death, and those things could become problems. Mark knew that some people had needed to go out and kill some revenants and ghost sharks and stuff like that, when those things had become self-sustaining problems.

Kandon Valen had the whole site under control.

… Mark wasn't supposed to leave the settlement walls, actually.

Oh well.

Mark pointed toward the front part of the kaiju's shell. It was where the module had been.

Walaria shrugged and nodded.

… Mark was both confused and disarmed. All of this had happened pretty fast, and then Walaria had de-aged herself to be Mark's age, and she wore normal hunting gear. And… And Mark was just now realizing that this was a very, very big deal.

Walaria grinned a little.

Mark maintained, and then he flew down toward the remains of the front half of the turtle.

The damage had blown turtle shell and flesh and bone out in every direction, but there was a pattern to it. The turtle's soft-ish bottom shell was mostly crushed into the Shine, into the water, and mostly out of view. A few pieces were to the right, on the bank of the Shine, and they were rotting. Someone had taken some mushroom spores from the mushroom forest down south and planted them in those exposed pieces and the mushrooms were taking off quite well, devouring the shell and the flesh. In several years even the hard parts of the shell would be broken and turned from keratin into debris.

The top parts of the shell were a lot stronger, and they were strewn across the land like broken hexagonal pieces, and a few larger chunks. A few shell fragments had gone very, very far. One had landed on the other side of the settlement. Most of the shell was right here.

The front part of the shell was in two pieces, where the ridge shell was cracked in half and sent tumbling and spinning away from the explosion, tearing lines of destruction through the shore of the Shine, and also just disappearing into the Shine.

Mark went to the part of the shell that was on shore. It had already been investigated, but they hadn't found much that they didn't expect to find. It was currently surrounded by dead and rotting things, far below the point where people had been investigating. That investigation point was a prominence of broken shell sticking up from the ground, with the prominence decayed unnaturally. It was like someone had taken the normal green and black shell, that was still kinda full of rotting meat, and used a Purity/Impurity Union on only the 10 meters that had been attached to the controller module. A dark black line led from the broken area, along the inside of the shell, and far down into the gore down there.

Down there, following that black line, were clear spaces among the gore. Like someone had set off a series of grenades along the inside of the shell.

Which is exactly what happened, according to preliminary studies of the shell.

Mark did not land. He hovered next to the prominence, on the fleshy side, and he stuck his caltrops into some handholds that people had already drilled for their own uses. Then he turned the tri-toroid into his usual glaive; 3 meters of staff, 1 meter of spear/sword. He was going to be ready if something showed up.

And then Walaria stepped into the air, walking around the area, right up to the prominence that was mostly gone, saying, "So that's the damage I saw on the video, yeah… And if this doesn't work here then we'll have to find the other part of the shell, but it might work here!" She pointed at a line of black that kinda stood out against all the other rotten gore inside the shell. "That's clearly a detonation cord and grenade explosions down there."

Mark nodded, slightly surprised that she was walking on nothing at all, but mostly he paid attention to the monsters down below that were feasting on the dead monsters. The dead monsters had gotten that way by eating the Ether Turtle's flesh, and only some of those dead ones were violently un-dead. The rest were just infected meat.

Walaria stepped in the air, looking around the broken prominence, and then she said, "Back up some more, Mark."

Mark stabbed his caltrops into an area of the flesh far away from the broken prominence, and the expended detonation cord.

"This is a non-standard spell I am about to cast. You'll have clearance for it eventually, and you might learn how to make an artifact to replicate the effects, though making this work through an artifact is a lot harder than you might think. You can probably call me when you need it cast. It only works on Daihoon." She paused and looked at Mark. "You know you'll never be a great mage, right? You don't have enough open space for much of anything else besides Union, Adamantiumkinesis, and your evolving Body."

Mark had been about to say that he had been told that a few times already, but then Walaria said 'evolving body' and not 'Incorruptible Body.' Mark said, "Artifacts are fine… and I can evolve my Body more?"

Walaria nodded. "Don't want to get too many hopes up, though, you understand." She lifted her arms and said, "Here we go!"

Mark felt like he was suddenly standing on the edge of a black abyss, and then the abyss resolved, revealing a world that did not exist. A world where the Ether Turtle's shell was fully intact, and covered over in green… and deep underwater, now that Mark could recognize what he was seeing. It was all murky and things swam in the deep, and down below was the great head of the turtle, like a brown and black surface that almost looked like simple river bottom. It was craggy and covered in silt, and Mark wasn't sure if the turtle had ever moved, but he knew it did. He had chased it away from the settlement a few times already.

And then someone appeared in the dark, like a black-glad void in space, towing something that was also a black void. They were swimming with some sort of water Power and some sort of illusion Power. They moved in the murk like someone who belonged there. But they didn't. There were small translucent fish in the water, and the fish saw and swam away from the person. The person was not a part of the kaiju's ecology—

The person got closer to the prominence of the turtle's shell, right over its head, and Mark knew those body proportions, and he saw the thing it was towing was the size and shape of the controller module, and the module was the size of the person.

Mark couldn't make out the exact nature of the person, but he knew…

It was a goblin, towing the controller module.

Mark breathed deep, shocking himself to awareness of his surroundings, like he half-woke from a dream. His caltrops were still lodged into the flesh of the kaiju, but now he was looking in on a black space in the world, filled with a manifested dream of the past.

Walaria floated to the side, watching the scene, too. She glanced at him, and then went back to looking at the illusion.

Over the next four minutes, Mark stood at the edge of a dream that did not play out in real time. The dream flexed forward, jumping from points in time to points in time, showing the goblin carve away parts of the turtle's shell without the turtle recognizing the intrusion at all. And then the goblin was installing the controller module. Suddenly the goblin was snaking down through the kaiju's flesh, toward the inside of its shell, carrying bombs in a mesh bag.

And then the dream faded like it was never there, revealing the broken flesh of the kaiju, and the destroyed prominence that used to be right above the kaiju's sleeping head. Mark blinked a little, fully coming back to the moment.

Walaria sighed, hateful and hiding it. "So it was goblins. Not the one we warned Aurora about the other day, not the Lightbody one, who is named Grax, by the way. But another one. Don't know that one, but I'm sure by the time I get back home someone will know something." Walaria held out her hand. "Handle again, please. No need for the chair. Let's go investigate the death cave."

… Mark extended a handle and turned his glaive back into a tri-toroid, asking, "What was that spell?"

"That is a very deep question." Walaria grabbed on to Mark's handle and simply hung there, holding on, and Mark had taken on her whole weight. She was still just standing there, holding the handle to the side, like it was more of a railing than a lifeline. "The small answer is this: I own this land through various rights, so I can do what I want with it."

"… Well okay then."

Mark spun up his copter and ascended, and Walaria held on to Mark's handle exactly like it was a railing. Was there anything under her feet? Nope! Not that Mark could see. Was she flying around with a vector that helped to tell what she was actually doing? Also no! She was just a small vector, standing there… Like she owned the place.

"Ah," Mark said, as he flew them toward the remains of the death cave.

Walaria grinned. "What, 'Ah'?"

"It's… It's all some sort of 'I own it and so I control it' kinda Power? From the flight to the magic you just did and probably the claims of… you being a dragon."

Mark was being way too forward, he knew.

He was also pretty sure that he wasn't being mentally controlled right now at all.

But that's what a mentally controlled person would say, right?

"Close enough to be correct."

… Mark decided to do an experiment, and the very second he thought about it, and started it, was pretty good confirmation that he wasn't being controlled. Mark began a Union of Freedom and Control, pulling the Freedom of the world into himself, and pushing Control into everything around him… Except for Walaria. That seemed like taking a bit too much liberty.

Black veins crashed out of his body and soft white veins flowed in from the outside. Those white veins weren't there for most of Mark's Unions, except when he was truly drawing hard in some way he didn't quite recognize, even now.

And Mark felt the same; nothing changed in his mind, or his surroundings. No mind control. No illusions.

Walaria smirked a little bit, but said nothing.