Blood Tithe
Thirteenth Day of the Eleventh Month 294 AC
Ritual Chamber, the Palace of the Archon, Volantis
On the very day that Zherys Naethyreon had risen to the peak of power behind the Black Wall, he had begun delving them for the chamber, black dragonstone now polished to a shine now gleamed in the light of gilded lanterns of unwavering flame, an ancient altar of Balerion reconsecrated to arcane purpose and brought here in haste. Well, the altar had been here since the start but the polish had taken a while longer. It could not really be helped. When else, after all, would he have found sacrifices of such an old and venerable line who were at once fools and daemons' puppets whose deaths would be celebrated in the streets rather than questioned?
He smiled now, thinking of how petty the uses he had found for the blood of his foes then; empowering the palace wards, spying on Benerro to ensure the truce held, he had even bound one soul into his arcanist's ring to make it more responsive to his will in a duel when all he would have had to do would have been to seek a more skilled enchanter for the task and he would not now get distracted in odd moments by the sound of distant weeping.
These days it would be more trouble than it was worth to obtain a permit to do the same; submit his work for review by a Scholarum certified board and even then the Inquisition could refuse to actually give into his keeping a prisoner which could be legally sacrificed. More red tape than red blood really. The dark haired sorcerer winced at his own thought. For someone who thought of puns as the lowest form of humor he was unfortunately quite sensitive in recognizing them.
Still, that did not mean he had sealed away his Athame. There was after all no injunction and far less paperwork in spilling the blood of those merely of bestial intellect.
Another man might have flinched at the bloodcurdling screech that came out of the darkness of the far chamber, but Zherys merely motioned the specifically crafted servitors, Seeker variants, to fetch the centerpiece of the ritual. Unnaturally strong though they may have been they still struggled with it and not without cause. On the stony shores of Sothoryos there dwelt still a breed of wyvern as feral as the dragons of Valyria in its later years, though thankfully not as large or as powerful, easy enough for a skilled hunter to track, though capturing one alive had been quite the premium.
"You shall have to do I suppose," he said unheard by any but the mute servitors. He could feel the magic surging within the beast, not the all consuming flame of its greater kin, but enough for his purposes. It would have cost far more, not in marks but favor, to make use of a feral dragon and while he did not object being in dept to the throne for most things, the thought that he might fail and that it would be known thereby was unacceptable.
If the ritual failed he had contingencies, three of them in fact, though the third would actually be worse then simply asking for a dragon and then having nothing to show for it.
Ah, my palms are sweating, the mage realized.
I cannot even blame the heat given the preliminary ward-work.
There was something almost dance-like, almost gentle about the way he raised the dagger, chanting arcane phrases and moving in sympathy to the motions of the heavens and the turning of the tides of molten stone deep beneath the earth, yet there was no trance here, no mage lost in the flow of magic. The craftsman who has mastered working all his life by candlelight will not be overcome working in the plain light of day no matter how grand the working.
The blade flashed like the cold sickle moon over dead mountains, one dragon-kin died... and another ascended.
Scales grew and fire flashed, flesh like water flowed and it was all as easy as breathing, as easy as
sorcery that was his birthright of old. Zherys Naethyreon roared his victory, like thunder in the depths of the earth.
OOC: I felt that it would make sense to lean into Zherys' actual skills in getting that spell rather than just 'he dreamed it like any other spell'. Mechanically it is the same of course.
