Shining Wyrm & The Blood Immaculate [Original Fantasy/Dragon Fiction]

[Nighzmarquls]

12.6

Adelyne would mutter all of her hate for that smug little fuck of a wizard if she didin't feel the very tension in her every fiber how that would reveal her.

Go take a walk in the garden before bed.

She could feel where the palace guards and other staff's eyes landed. She knew when she was about to make a sound before she did. Like reaching the end of a slack of rope. Or pressing on a near frayed garment and sensing the point right before fibers broke.

Go feel what has been given to you.

At first she had been terrified, on the verge of panic that she would be caught and imprisoned. But then a bit of sense crawled up her spine and whispered.

What would they even do if she was caught?

The same way she could feel the muscles, skin and bone of her legs and feet straining against some invisible boundary with every step. The way that her skin, hair and especially her eyes could practically taste the gaze of the guards and servants in the palace like the heat of a fire before it burnt?

She could feel an assurance of what she could say, what others might do.

Even if she was caught she was the bonded servant of the Countess of Viznove, the most honored guest of the High King of the Palace itself.

Adelyne would be escorted back to her chambers if found outside her place.

It was a heady feeling indeed.

The Wizard Fizzbunches' boon, spell, enchantment, whatever was something that soaked deep into her flesh and bone. Into her very thoughts.

Even considering something she could feel its pressure when she approached its many borders.

The straining envelope that warned her she would be known.

That told her what she risked.

After that the fear had slowly dripped away as the minutes and then hours flowed by. As she found she could simply step forward, stand, lean, shift.

It was like how she had come to learn to move in the crowd.

But so much more.

Adelyne was not invisible. She was not even unseen.

But it turned out if you moved the right way through someone's gaze?

If you were already still when an eye went past you?

With a light pressure in every thought, on every inch of flesh to tell you how?

You could be far more than invisible.

You could be Unnotable.

As the night went on Adelyne's confidence grew. She practiced, she played, she slid past the guards and guests of the High King's welcoming feast as they departed.

Never close to the Lady Jewel of course.

The presence of the Shining Wyrm of Viznove to Adelyne's new found sense of discovery and perception? With Jewel it blazed like the summer sun or a blacksmith's furnace at even the thought of approaching her.

There was almost no where, no when, no way within hundreds of feet of Jewel that Adelyne could safely sneak by.

There were plenty of ways she could become safely ignored or accepted as present.

Perfectly unthought of, like one's own tongue sitting in their mouth.

But there was no path to sneak into one of those places without first entering the inferno that was Jewel's awareness of Adelyne.

She would be noted and if she was somewhere outside of the expected time or place the route past the wyrm was impassable. For some reason even dwelling on trying to find a way to approach the Shining Wyrm felt like it was dangerously getting closer to the heat of her attention.

But just that sense of where she would be seen or otherwise discovered by Jewel was a powerful tool.

It made it astoundingly easy to track where her lady was.

So Adelyne somewhat sideways took the advice of the smug fuck of a wizard who both resembled and did not resemble a cat.

Confident in her newfound ability to always slip past notice by anything but Jewel herself.

Which was probably the point when Adelyne had stopped thinking.

Because once she was slipping into the cool Debt season air of the gardens it had all felt like there was not a hint of notice or awareness touching her anywhere.

And then when she was halfway into the garden suddenly she was burning under attention closing in on all sides. Burying her in the undeniable constriction of being heard, being seen, being smelt and even tasted (and wasn't that unpleasant).

The immediacy of it froze her to the spot midway through the garden.

Paralyzed her from bolting for the complacency that the wizard's boon had eased her into only going where she felt an opening to remain hidden. Which is what Adelyne would blame for why she did not even move as the terrifying monster sauntered up to her from across the garden. Eyes shining bright green in the dark of the stars.

The black of the night slowly reveals the face of a woman with tightly wound braided hair.

Something that despite the rictus of mad delight peeling back admittedly comely if foreign lips was utterly terrifying.

That mouth had far too many teeth!

Plus the face and head which bore it was almost as tall as Adelyne standing!

It moved with a predatory grace, that reminded her a lot of the dancers and more high end whores. Bare shoulders slinking along in the dark. Just barely highlighted by the stars above and the sparse candles kept at the entrances to the garden courtyard.

As it walked the grace of a human dancer slowly was lost, for it was not moving like any woman. Instead the shoulders and back arched and swayed in an obviously feline manner.

The giant moved as Adelyne was far too familiar with after even the one encounter with Fizzbunches. And as the figure drew close enough for more than hints to shine in Adelyne's slowly adapting eyes the details grew more detailed. The clink of hollow clay brushing and striking one another giving dull music to the figure.

Those arms ended in paws, wider than Adelyne's body. A tail was swaying behind a sinuous back wider than a cart.

Over the eyes of what she mistook for a woman's face were thin brows.

The teeth were each the size of three of Adelyne's fingers across. But in such a massive mouth they seemed far too tiny and numerous.

In the dark she could not judge the color of those eyes, beyond the way they shined.

And finally with a face bigger then she was, close enough the proportional but utterly vast nose and its nostrils could billow her clothing back and carry the familiar sour sweet pungency of a predator's last meal.

Then only once those eyes were close enough they had to cross to meet Adelyne's

Then the monster speaks.

"The dawning grandmother's pet comes to my den! A fine hunter too is the little pet, swift, silent, unseen, young but bloodied too!"

Another deep huff and then the smile that had been revealing of far more teeth and from so close what Adelyne thought was some kind of terrifying hook covered tongue spread beyond any sensible or sane measure.

Not even a waif could peel back the flesh of a face to reveal the entirety of their jaws like that.

And as she was becoming very tired of Adelyne made note how despite the face they sat within not a single one of those massive fangs were a human tooth.

She was becoming far too acquainted with horrific magical beasts and their teeth.

"Is the little pet perhaps hunting the little boy?"

There was a rumble there, a hungry growl, a deeply amused purr. The sound of it made every hair on Adelyne's body try to stand on end.

The horrifying grin closed to a far more human smirk. Eyes closing half way. The silver green night shines almost entirely closed off. Eyes as big as Adelyne's head still crossing to keep fixed on her.

That gigantic nose was still close enough she could reach out to touch it.

If she had wished for death.

She struggled for words.

"N-not hunting anyone, especially not any little boys."

The great head drew back, stopped filling the entirety of Adelyne's vision. Letting her appreciate the rest of the dark face in the dark. The fact that the thing which she was going to call a woman for her own peace of mind did indeed have a fine and full head of hair.

Braided in locks as big around as her shins. Run through some kind of bands that just by the sound of it were probably made of some kind of fired clay.

The clattering when two bands touched was like dishes.

The more notable rattle of the now revealed neck showed what looked like several potter's entire seasons' stock had been made into necklaces. The dark kept Adelyne from discerning the color.

But by star and distant candle light she could see that while the monstrous woman was definitely inhuman in posture and size. There were some assets just behind that necklace which Adelyne shared with it. Not on that scale, but if you had somehow made the girl herself bigger than four oxen and kept everything proportional she might have even been a bit heavier then the monster.

With her eyes adjusting to the dark (and widened in such panicked terror) she was also starting to suspect that besides the braided hair the monster had not a single other speck of the stuff.

"Not hunting anyone. And especially not any little boys. How clever, how fascinating, what could it mean."
Adelyne started to speak in answer but there was a hiss like the most terrible of vipers and a fluttering that sounded like a flock of ravens taking flight.

"Not given up yet!"

Which when the giant monster appeared to want silence what was Adelyne to do?

Her teeth snapped shut almost hard enough to catch her tongue.

"The dawn mother's toy moves as a hunter but is not hunting. She hunts especially not for little boys. She is caught in her hunt that is not a hunt when spotted in our den. And rightly freezes. The toy is not foolish prey, steps are too clever for that. But afraid now despite not being prey, so greatly afraid."

The words roll free with a deep rumbling undercurrent of a growl and the face looks Adelyne up and down, brows furrowing in thought, lower lip even sliding under the upper teeth to pinch a bit in thought.

"A hunt that is not a hunt, prey that is not prey. And especially not for little boys. The dawn mother's toy is full. But does not sleep."

The smile is wide, grinning in delight. A sudden surprised and delighted expression on the face.

"Ah! Curiosity, a hunt that is not a hunt. To see, to know, to find, to play!"

Adelyne was still trying to figure out what the giant beast woman thing was going on about and just stared blankly, before offering a bit of a slow nod.

The smile is smug and the lids close half way. The giant face suddenly immensely pleased with itself, before the entire thing rolls onto its side with such grace that Adelyne only barely feels the tremor of it in the ground.

"A win for me, and now it is my turn. But the toy is the dawn mother's and the little boy and his fathers and mothers earned with their own cleverness and tribute besides. Hmmm, a proper tribute is earned and owed! But the toy is sparse of flesh and owned besides."

Despite the thing rolling onto its side of the lounge in the dark, Adelyne did not in the least feel any safer from it.

Finally whatever deep and incomprehensible mystery occupied it cleared.

"Ah, it is a very clever toy and a good huntress! I have been trapped! For my turn then an easy one, shall the toy knead my shoulders, groom my locks or feed me its least useful hand for my win?"

Adelyne's back went shocking with a freezing tone and before she could even catch up fully to the implication she was shouting.

"Your shoulders, rubbing your shoulders!"

The smile widened again and the great beast rolled onto her belly and 'stretched' out, her entire body flattening considerably. Tilting a little so one shoulder which was under the light of the stars bare and easily large enough for Adelyne to walk up and down.

"A win for the toy then. But now a prize is owed. The toy is owned until done. And then a service may be taken in turn."

Trembling a bit Adelyne walked up to the thing and then climbed up the bare shoulder. Feeling the muscles and vast bone beneath her shoes, before kneeling down into a crouch before trying to get a perch which she wouldn't tumble off of.

It took a while to get secure but apparently the pressure she could manage by leaning all her weight into both fists was enough for a happy rumble to shake up through her knees and feet.

"Uh, who are you? Do you have a name?"

A deep burring laugh shook the chest and shoulder beneath Adelyne. The ceramic bands holding the braids and the necklace rattling together with sharp and dull chimes together.

"Easy one, and no more gifts for my next little toy, I am Sphinx, I am keeper, I am holder and grasper and imprisoner, I warden the ways as my mother, aunts and sisters did. As was commanded by grandmother Ammit. For this answer are you owned for another task, you shall rake my back until the itches are banished."

Adelyne spoke, but as soon as the words left her fool lips she regretted it.

"Why another task?"

The loose skin beneath her rippled and a warning growl filled the cavernous chest beneath her.

"Not the little toy's turn!"

Which froze Adelyne until the giant beast beneath her yowled at her lack of improvised massage. She dutifully obeyed the thing that had threatened to eat her hand for a reason she did not even fully understand.

"After the little toy will get the long rake and work over the back until the itching is done. Then the little toy will set her task."

After a silence of Adelyne working up and down a shoulder that was larger then she was and a demand for her to move to the other side to do the same the beast sighed heavily and then said in a contrite tone.

"Apologies due, the little toy of the dawn mother is due two tasks owed first. There has not been a partner to trade words in many years. Eagerness to slake such a thirst makes foolish kittens of us all. The toy shall receive the task owed before the rake scratching."

Adelyne reached for the words, feeling out the hint of that strange boundary, the things she definitely should not say. The way she should not let her voice settle.

Beyond even the slight lilt of another question Adelyne could practically feel claws and terrible teeth.

"Plea- I mean, Explain what we've been doing here so far with me."

She was very careful to not even seem to ask a question.

If the giant monster (which apparently had proportionally tiny crow wings further back its spine) was anything like the cat it seemed to imitate the rumbling joy was a good sign.

 

[Zaealix]

…Hrrrm.
This Sphinx and Fizzbunches play their cards close to their chests, or so the saying goes…
Adelyne, still a maid in the right place and time and yet…
Hrrrm.
I shall follow the felines' lead from here I think.

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

And this is why even if I was isekai'd, with ALL of the beast tamer and summoning powers, I would ensure I was on the other side of the world from any sphinx. I can only ask them what's in my pocket so many times I'm sure.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

And this is why even if I was isekai'd, with ALL of the beast tamer and summoning powers, I would ensure I was on the other side of the world from any sphinx. I can only ask them what's in my pocket so many times I'm sure.

Click to shrink...

I Must recomend if you somehow ever find yourself in the world of shining wyrm to not try and fool a sphinx by asking what is in your pocket. They have very good senses.

 

[Altom]

I Must recomend if you somehow ever find yourself in the world of shining wyrm to not try and fool a sphinx by asking what is in your pocket. They have very good senses.

Click to shrink...

But what if he has catnip there?

 

[Nighzmarquls]

12.7

Jewel had met many wizards in her life. She felt that she had a good basis for judging them.

The Court Wizard of High King Mathias managed to fit somewhere between Tsulogothulan and Jaksa.

He mostly lacked enough wizardly strangeness to mark him as being a full weird. But he actually bothered to arrive in a suitably sorcerous manner when they arrived in the room where Mathias said the rituals were performed.

A hot searing heat, the abrupt ring of metal upon metal. And then a flash of sparks sailing back from his form.

He wore what Jewel at first took as heavy leather over his chest which hung in a skirt across his legs. A loop hung it from his neck and it was tied around the back of his waist.

His legs were further covered in a shorter skirt of what again moved like leather, but as the scent of it settled off him Jewel corrected her original assumption regarding it. This was not anything of flesh or fabric. But a rich and solid iron.

Rust Red and brown clothing. His skin was equally flushed, his hair a mix of deep black and a silvery shine. Face completely bare of any hair but bushy silvered brows.

Every muscle seemed prominent and in many places along his arms were pits and scars. But instead of pale burnt flesh was the dull gray of metal. His eyes when he opened them lit the room with a deep red of smoldering embers.

His shoulders and arms were as wide and long as Jewel's father had. But he stood hardly taller than Adelyne.

"My King, why have I been called?"

His voice rumbled, whistled sharply and creaked in his chest. There was fire and heat to his breath. His pockmarked fore arms flexing at his sides, as if wanting to grasp something. His hands fingering at the garment at his front. The left hand finally succumbs to the desire and pulls out a delicate little hammer.

He smelled like charcoal and sweat.

"The Countess of Viznove, Lady Jewel of Rochford desires an explanation of how my latest project was accomplished. She is performing the final evaluation on if we can afford to put them to use in the Realm."

The eyes which glowed with the heat of a furnace looked up at Jewel before nodding. A breath that was hot and whistling passed his lips somehow distantly howling.

"Fizzbunches and his circle's project? A delight to finally meet you Lady Jewel of Rochford."

He offered her a hand that even as he extended it the skin burned and pulled back with a bubbling almost tumorous upwelling of lumpy orange metal beneath.

Jewel dubiously extended her own hand to grasp his forearm as one might a comrade. It felt a bit improper to accept that she considered him a brother in arms. But he had offered her the trust of it first and he sounded and smelled like a decent fellow.

Worse first impressions had been made by sorcerers to Jewel.

Two stand outs immediately come to mind.

She spoke with the care and decorum her mother taught her.

"Whether the circumstances call for joy or sadness remain to be seen. And your name Lord Sorcerer?"

His grip was firm, solid, like stone and metal. It felt proud but with no ill intent. Like a solid foundational stone bearing a great work. The heat of red hot iron pressing in and shaping to settle between her scales surprisingly soothing on Jewel's forearm.

"Erhard Ironhand, Court Wizard of the High King Mathias' household."

He turned his furnace lit eyes from Jewel to the thing that was not a woman. Then was in motion, turning his back to her, smooth and efficient. Not a waste to any step. The flushed red skin of his hands returned as the hot metal receded.

A finger reaching out to gently lift the chin of the thing that was once a woman.

He spoke while it said nothing.

"A challenge this was, To turn the spillage and slag of another's work into proper form and art."

He flicked the thing's nose, which stared ahead impassively. A wave of heat, the only warning before every scrap of clothing on the hungry corpse's body, ignited in a white hot flare then extinguished just as sharply into a fine powder of ash.

"More a work of carving away from a whole thing than a melting or shaping. Striking the metal of the flesh until it cleaves apart and leaves the final result is what he did."

He circled the naked body, which stood, breathed, had a heart that beat and yet did not sweat despite the heat. Did not give up a single drop of water or air, only took in either and squeezed the life out of them.

"The original method was amateur work, Slow to reach the result, crude, trades a break in one for a weakening fault in another. First thing to do was to hone that, find how much it could be strengthened, how hard a blow it could be while not shattering the material completely."

Jewel listened but so far was not liking anything she heard.

"Needed to call in assistance from the heavens for that part. Took a month or longer without them. But find the right god? Can do it all in a single night, met more trouble there though."

For the first time since he'd stripped the thing that at least looked like a woman the forge lit eyes fixed to the face of the corpse. Spoke evenly and directly.

"Will you obey the order of the High King or myself in his stead?"

The thing that was not a woman spoke evenly and calm.

"Of course lord sorcerer."

Jewel noticed that the High King had been slowly stepping back from both of them, making his way behind his guards.

Men in heavy armor who were already bracing behind heavy shields and arming themselves.

Erhard stared straight into the corpse's face and commanded her.

"By the bindings made upon you, by the oath of the gods and the command of the High King Mathias and his power invested in me as his Court Wizard I order you to go to your son and tear his head fro-"

And like Jewel had seen before in what was now her feasting hall the thing moved almost faster than any sense should have allowed. What had appeared to be an ambulatory corpse of a woman flared with a wrenching sucking void and divine presence.

Both the terrible emptiness in its heart and the layered and enfolding lances of cutting divinity suddenly flaring in a whorl. But what was surprising is that in the time it took her to blink the Court Wizard had been struck so hard across the face he was thrown into the far wall. The sound of metal and flesh being wrenched and torn only fully settling after Jewel realized he had impacted.

Stone was broken and as Jewel prepared to muster her flame to destroy the obviously feral thing she was halted by its words.

The voice of a dead woman now living but a moment echoed from that throat. Drawn out with a most aching pain. But above all else a vibrant and inescapable truth of rage at the trespass, and in the settling cloud of an undeniably living fear and love.

"You will not touch him!"

Jewel stared, the thing settling back to a quietude, the hungering depths in its chest slowly closing up again. The divine working that laced and lashed through it stilling to near un-notable levels.

It turned to stare at Mathias, face ever so slightly twisted toward annoyance, the feral anger of before a vague blur of memory for how brief it had been.

"My High King Mathias, you do not truly command this do you?"

There was not a hint of danger, remorse, or concern.

Not even a single drop of feeling in the air, no scent released.

The High King from behind his guards asked with a wide smile, not even a hint of concern in his tone.

"What would you do if I said yes? Despite all the sorcery riddled through you? Supposedly made by your own living words to vow that you would serve me in exchange for the restoration of your son to full health?"

Her head tilted slightly, turning slowly to look at Jewel.

Then back at him, face slack.

"I would either perish in flame or leave you and all your men smote upon the walls of this room, your blood wetting my hunger, and then I would acquire my son and we would depart the realm and travel until we were beyond your kin's reach. All who sought to stop us I would slay and then I would see that he grew to be a good man and found himself a wife and raised a family."

The words were a disorienting mix of dead flat statements and violently emotional cries. A living woman briefly being smothered by her own corpse as she spoke in turns.

Mathias nodded and then spoke simply.

"You will never be ordered to do such again and I will swear to my stars I will give no such order to harm your son. This was a test for the benefit of the Lady Jewel to show the truth of your nature."

And just like that all the subtle poise was gone, even the more overt hint of the divine workings or that endless hunger folding up and snuffing out.

The thing that was both alive and not simply sood there.

And then in another sudden strike of metal upon metal and a flash of sparks Erhard Ironhands was right in front of her again nodding.

"That's the impurity to it all, and the biggest fault in the working itself."

Jewel looked at the Wizard and then the corpse.

"Fault? What Fault!? Why did you order her to do something so horrible!?"

Erhard walked around the corpse, looking at her like a shaped tool, one that he seemed annoyed by.

"Jaksa the Red did not set out to make servants, and there is nothing in the working that could be used to make such. These products are not tools, they are the cast offs of tools."

He prodded the chest of the thing as it breathed calmly in an imitation of life. There was a slightly more ravenous pace to it then had been before, a hunger to the paleness of the skin. A desperation to the way the nostrils were flaring slightly.

"Everything about it stems from violation, rebellion, refusal to give any more of what is taken, hunger to restore what can never be returned."

He spoke of something monstrous, horrific and somehow even worse than what Jewel's own senses had made of the things. It made her flame want to rise and slay the Countess Bathory and see her burn.

The feeling was not sated that she already had.

But the wizard continued, apparently ignoring her growing displeasure. Speaking with an even but fascinated tone.

"No chain of metal, sorcery or divinity could hold such a thing against its will without it tearing itself apart. We tried with beasts, criminals."

He just kept talking, intimating so many horrors in simple passing.

"We tried a dozen gods and their auspices to make tighter chains. No good, it just destroys them."

Jewel stared at the Wizard, then at the High King. Just how many of these things had he made in the years since he saw them and acquired the means?!
"Eventually we tried volunteers, and that gave the first hint of a way to finally shape this wasteful slag."

Jewel hissed out in horror.

"Who would volunteer for this!?"

Before either Mathias or Erhard could answer, the thing spoke.

"My son was dead that night, the fever took him just like his father."

The voice of a grieving woman who yet held her tone with a solidness of iron and determination Jewel had heard before in the voice of her own Father and Thurzó.

"They swore that he would live again for a price, They swore he would be safe and want for nothing even if I could no longer care for him."

There was a tremble as the corpse's hands gripped closed.

"They called down Asherah with my spilled blood and the dead body of my son."

Jewel stared at the thing as its face twitched and tried to clench, at the eyes trying desperately to keep all of the world to themselves even as thick red welled at the corners and then began to slide down its cheeks in bloody tears.

She could feel the void trying to keep all of that to itself and yet the voice of a dead woman could force it free.

To make the dead cry.

"They took my health, my life, my love, they saved my son. He breathed, his heart beat, his life came back into him as mine went out."

There was a shudder up and down it. A sound that creaked somewhat like a whimper.

"And then as my son opened his eyes Asherah spoke to me, she offered me a way to remain for him, to be his mother still. Even as I died. She offered it to me as a vow."

Jewel found her words, the voice of the dead woman, the true words of her echoed in the room.

Not the dead empty thing but a resonant echo. Bound into her hungering flesh and empty heart like marks carved in stone.

"What did you swear?"

The thing turned to Jewel and spoke with the voice of a dead woman, smile momentarily forced into a radiance of joy, red tracks of her tears curling around her cheeks as her eyes practically seemed to struggle and strive to escape her sockets, bound by the divine markings etched deep into them.

"Asherah swore to me! She Swore that she would keep my dead flesh true to my heart or it would perish in my blood's fire."

And then the face's animation fell away, the muscles going placid, the skin soaking up and devouring the red liquid that had drifted down its cheeks. Flushing briefly before secreting it away deeper within the hungry thing.

Erhard's voice is just as stern as before, but he sounds incredibly pleased in spite of it.

"That master stroke was mine. How do you shape rebellion borne of violation? How do you bend righteous betrayal? It's a gentle thing, not a forceful blow."

Jewel just stared numbly at the Wizard.

He was proud of what he had performed here.

He'd taken a mother's love and used it to make some kind of sorcerous chain to command her revenant flesh? As she thought that, she could almost see the chain links of fauxfire, ringing true as much more than metaphor.

"Of course, such a method can only do so much. We can't force the nature of their vow. Tried that, even if they claim it is by their own will to give us their loyalty it never works. Is why she knocked me into a wall. She was the test to see if the countess' old failure with the mother that ate her own child was worked out."

Jewel stared at the wizard.

"Did you fail with other women? Did one of them eat their child before this?!"

Erhard scoffed.

"Of course not."

Jewel let her neck relax ever so slightly.

"All the ones that betrayed themselves like that burst into flames immediately, I do better work then that. Even when working with gods."

Jewel could only stare at the wizard.

"Now if that answers the Lady Jewel's interest in how the things were made, could she spare a moment to let me see some of her breath anathema? I've got some samples I'd love to see burnt in your fires."

Jewel stared down at the man with furnaces for eyes.

Face stern and yet somehow childishly eager in the way the flames flickered in his sockets.

 

[thepsyborg]

Wow.

I mean, it's...horrific, but really it sounds like they accomplished what they set out to do. Good for them. What a shame they missed the terrifyingly obvious question of is your condition still transferable?

Having a single generation of genuinely loyal vampires, even a modest one of genuine volunteers used justly and prudently, is still signing your own doom if those they slay in your service might rise without any divine oath binding them.

 

[Zaealix]

…King.
That Sphinx is dancing in my head rent free.
I think you not as clever as you think you are. You had a Wizard of Fortresses for a reason King…
You should not have sent him if this is your true nature King…

 

[Cecylene]

I Must recomend if you somehow ever find yourself in the world of shining wyrm to not try and fool a sphinx by asking what is in your pocket. They have very good senses.

Click to shrink...

The problem of a riddle is that you must let someone ponder it and look at you if you're asking a question that has a physical element. Sure they can't look inside the pocket but the Sphinx will absolutely walk around you a few times and sniff and look and investigate in every way short of physical touch.

And if you were so foolish as to put your hand into your pocket, then the Sphinx already has an answer.

Regarding the Sphinx and the King, the King's real problem is that he never goes out to Hunt for himself to the Sphinx's senses.

This is not a matter of battle itself however, but rather that the king always has others handle his battles, his projects, his diplomacy, his taxes, his laws, his plans, and the king benefits from them all like a boy or a welp being fed by the family/pack/herd/flock what have you.

The king does not strive for his own results. And in the Sphinx's eyes that makes him ever a child, despite the countless opportunities afforded to him to challenge and LEAD.

 

[I_S]

This kingdom is going to burn down very pretty.

 

[Arcane Howitzer]

She Swore that she would keep my dead flesh true to my heart or it would perish in my blood's fire.

Click to shrink...

All the ones that betrayed themselves like that burst into flames immediately,

Click to shrink...

That's what I was hoping for, a failsafe that keeps them from going feral if their control ever slips or gets disrupted.

If I'm reading things correctly, the actual soul of the woman is being held by Asherah and is controlling the body remotely from wherever she is being kept. Now if someone manages to jam the signal (and you know someone would figure out how sooner or later), all that happens is the empty body immediately self-destructs instead of being let off the metaphorical leash in the middle of a populated castle.

What a shame they missed the terrifyingly obvious question of is your condition still transferable?

Click to shrink...

I don't think it was ever transferable. When those things in the cells drained someone, the victim didn't get back up. If they did, then that one containment breach they mentioned having a while back would have exploded into a full-on Zombie Apocalypse in a matter of hours.

Or maybe I'm misremembering, it's been a while.

 

[Cecylene]

I Must recomend if you somehow ever find yourself in the world of shining wyrm to not try and fool a sphinx by asking what is in your pocket. They have very good senses.

Click to shrink...

I'm actually now thinking a good riddle of "what's in my pocket" would be to turn it inside out first and then ask to give the Sphinx a fun little mental puzzle to consider which would still let the Sphinx win by virtue of the answer being either "Everything" or "Nothing", which I'd think would be fun for the Sphinx to debate which is the better answer.

But it's be good enough to probably net you a pass on the Sphinx's own turn.

 

[thepsyborg]

I don't think it was ever transferable. When those things in the cells drained someone, the victim didn't get back up. If they did, then that one containment breach they mentioned having a while back would have exploded into a full-on Zombie Apocalypse in a matter of hours.

Or maybe I'm misremembering, it's been a while.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't have expected hours anyway; I'd have expected them to rise only on the next nightfall, or the third nightfall, or something.

I wasn't sure either, so I went back and checked. You're not mistaken; there's been no specific indication that they can make more of themselves. There's also been some indications (but no definite ones) that they can't:

1. That containment breach you recalled: "five footmen and thirteen ladies perished before it was slain." It was notably not said that the thing killed five footmen and thirteen ladies.
   
   It was making at least some effort to conceal itself, but if it could only successfully get one or two victims alone and unobserved each night, that eighteen could have been three or four "generations".
2. Thurzó, at least according to the High King, assumes them to be the "eventual" product of sorcery. No indication is made by anyone that they can be created other than via prolonged sorcery- at least until this last chapter when it was revealed that they can also be produced by relatively swift sorcery.

And given the context of "showing the High King what we're up to and explaining how it's not us trying to raise an unkillable undead army or any other sort of threat to his kingdom", well, if they were contagious they would have been a threat to his kingdom, so obviously Bathory and Jaska would have failed to mention that bit.

On the whole, however, I think you're probably correct and they're not inherently contagious, mostly because (at least before her myth become linked with the vampire one, which surprisingly wasn't until the 1970s!) there was no mention in folklore of Countess Bathory being anything save a solo actor; even her four servants were never reputed to be more than accomplices; they never took up the habit of imitating her crimes for themselves, nor was there a daughter or favored companion participating with her, or even tales of those she slew seeking vengeance on the living.

As far as I'm aware, at least- and I do not claim to be an expert.

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

I Must recomend if you somehow ever find yourself in the world of shining wyrm to not try and fool a sphinx by asking what is in your pocket. They have very good senses.

Click to shrink...

*Fully plans things out by using a rock*
"Rock, sedimentary, sandstone, do keep running it'll make it more interesting."

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

I'm actually now thinking a good riddle of "what's in my pocket" would be to turn it inside out first and then ask to give the Sphinx a fun little mental puzzle to consider which would still let the Sphinx win by virtue of the answer being either "Everything" or "Nothing", which I'd think would be fun for the Sphinx to debate which is the better answer.

But it's be good enough to probably net you a pass on the Sphinx's own turn.

Click to shrink...

Noted, taking you with me if I ever isekai

 

[Serious_Senator]

This kingdom is going to burn down very pretty.

Click to shrink...

I hope not. A lot of innocent people preyed upon by this worlds structure will die.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

12.8

The High King had let Jewel be badgered and fawned over in equal measure before he asked her if she finally knew enough to declare their efforts to tame Jaksa's horrors a 'success'.

She had thought about it a moment longer and then asked to speak to the 'product' alone and for new clothes to be acquired for it. That had disappointed the strange wizard and his obsession with watching Jewel burn things with wyrm flame and requesting to further touch her person (which she refused)

Jewel promised them both that after she was done she would give her decision in the morning.

Whatever uncertainty they harbored for the thing's loyalty did not extend to any concern about leaving it alone even after Jewel departed.

And then she had been alone with it, deprived of more opportunities to watch her flame render iron, wood, stone, flesh and even stranger substances under the wizard's fiery scrutiny. Erhard had departed in a violent flash of ringing metal and sparks.

What was the importance of how beeswax burned in wyrmfire raw vs shaped into candles?

Jewel did not know.

However after even a few questions speaking to the corpse of a woman she was already missing Erhard and his earnest if steely faced curiosity.

"How do you feel?"

"Hungry"

"No, I mean how are you?"

"I am here"

"Are you happy?"

"No"

"Are you in pain"

"No"

It could take over a dozen questions to confirm anything, sometimes more! It spoke as little as possible, as if it wanted to keep every word locked up inside itself.

It was such a chore to speak with!

But as she asked Jewel kept finding hints and slivers of it, truths and heartfelt emotions.

Fragments of the woman that had once lived beneath that skin, seen with those eyes, smiled with those lips.

She learned a great many things and yet even as the hours slipped by she felt like she knew far too little. Just a pile of facts, and each of them requiring more litigation then any guild, noble or even an irritated farmer could muster!

The woman's hair and eyes had not been red before the ritual that made it this, but brown and blue respectively.

She was 'delighted' (only barely said with a spark of emotion) by her son's new found life and looked forward to all she could do to care for him with the full resources of the High King's palace at her disposal (extracted with fifty different monosyllabic answers).

She was not nursing him before his death or presently. But would make her flesh allow it, although despite Jewel's protest she then seemed confused that the only thing that would come from trying to squeeze her own teat was blood.

The answer had changed then, if her son needed milk she would find a wet nurse.

The woman's name had been Franziska Millersdottir and it was embarrassing how long it took Jewel to ask that.

Her boy was Leobwin Franzison (this only took four questions).

She felt no pain or fear anymore.

Franziska's corpse said as honestly as Jewel could determine that she felt nothing at all but the slight drag of her own hunger.

She did not mind this at all, it simply was, like the color of her hair.

No love, no hate, just the lurking hunger which craved to always eat, to swallow the life back that had been taken from it.

So many questions, every question Jewel could think of to try and tease out the truth of just what Erhard, Mathias and the priests and other god botherers had done to the woman. To try and satisfy her judgment that the woman should or should not be.

A dead voice, speaking with a dead tongue that yet breathed and ate and drank and performed so many acts like life. But shining through like sunlight breaking between cracked walls and stone was the light of the once living woman. Not the person herself as far as Jewel could determine.

But there was something more than just the corpse and its hunger, something somehow held by sorcery and divine miracle.

And for that she had to know the truth of what was there.

She had to ask until she had an answer.

It was a task that left Jewel feeling exhausted when she finally felt like there was nothing more she could extract from the corpse.

The last thing she had determined was the paradox of the creature itself.

It cared not at all for its own life.

It did not care about anything.

Not even satisfying its hunger. The hunger simply was what it was.

But when in a fit of frustration Jewel presented the possibility that it might be destroyed?

That had prompted an action.

"Will you swear to keep Leobwin safe?"

Jewel stared at the empty thing which had stood there sucking air for long hours with no complaint. No obvious agency at all with its hunger so shackled.

"Why do you ask? You freely admitted you care not for him."

The thing shifted more than it had for most of the night. It dragged its tongue over its lips, looked up and down Jewel's coils with a calculating but starving gaze.

"It was my vow, He must live. Or I will perish and burn."

Jewel glared at the thing that refused to make this problem simple for her.

"You would already be perished, You don't even mind if you do, What does that matter to you?"

And there was a proper pause there.

It almost seemed to freeze, but the roil of the presence of divine and sorcerous workings showed something was happening within it.

"I cannot trust the High King Mathias to Protect little Leobwin. I gave my life to Asherah to save my son, But the High King would use his life to test my loyalty."

Every word was flat, not touched by that intermittent spirit of the dead woman whose corpse still stood before Jewel.

It settled its roaming gaze to face Jewel, the hunger of its eyes, of its pores, of every part of it gnashing at the surface. The twisting sorcery and divinity in its flesh a tumult that seemed to strain at every fiber of its hunger.

"But you would have ended me before I could harm Leobwin. You were horrified by the king, by his wizard and his words."

The thing which should have been nothing but an empty pit of hunger, driven only to devour. Which sucked at the air to strip its vitality. The thing that felt like a terrible black pit of an ornament wrapped in a filigree of sorcery and divine decree before her?

It begged for a child's life just because that had been part of the vow used to create it.

The dying wish of the woman it had been.

Jewel said the only thing she could.

"I would keep him safe if I destroyed you."

And like that it bowed its head, it kneeled, bits of its flesh and that black pit of a heart writhed.

The hunger did not precisely want to surrender.

Jewel could taste that emptiness lashing at any hint of giving in.

But it was balanced by the miracles within it.

They were like that for some time, Jewel was not sure for how long but the candles in the room had melted further than the low place they had reached when she gave her promise.

In time the silence between them was broken by the thing speaking.

"If you are not going to end me, I need to depart. Leobwin will miss his mother if he wakes early. I will need to play with him and teach him and tell him stories and feed him today. And the days after. Unless you destroy me."

Jewel stared for a moment before finally responding.

"Go then, you have duties to your son."

And then it was gone, near silent, running into the dark hallways like a shadow of a bird in flight.

Jewel ached as she uncurled herself from the tight confines of the chamber. Every one of her six limbs aching as she made her way through the darkness of the dead night.

A glance to the stars showing she would have far too few hours of sleep before the trials of the next morning came. But she would take what sleep could be stolen from this awful night. The way was obvious, she could smell her own passing and had been given a tour once of the grounds.

She was silent and lifted by wyrmflame when she finally found her family's sleeping chamber.

She was as gentle and quiet as she could be slipping into the room and finding space around her husband and spawn in the dark of their bedroom. Settling as slowly and carefully as possible into the cushions.

Breathing deeply and slowly.

Matching her inner turmoil with the already restful dreaming of 'Gem'.

The evened breathing of her husband.

What an awful day.

What a terrible night.

But Jewel could feel something in her flame unfettered and free.

She had Mathias' answer regarding the poor woman and whatever terrible working of sorcery and the divines had been used to make her into that thing.

A part of her hoped he would dislike her judgment.

But as she drifted into dreams her lips and brows made a frown.

He probably would not.

 

[Zaealix]

Hrrrm…
Almost as if…
…If I'm right, again, you suck Jaska. Protect your charges!
Bleeckh…
But the thought that these things are so disloyal because they're babies getting mistreated is just depresssing in the extreme.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

12.9

Adelyne was not intending to end up spending the night under the stars surrounded in the incredibly soft skin of a giant-cat-woman-beast-monster thing.

She also had not intended to end up in what it turned out was a very storied and traditional 'hunt of minds' with said monster-beast-woman-cat-giant that entailed them exchanging favors for every question or puzzle 'found right' by the other party.

Adelyne was also not intending the Sphinx' attendants finding her circumstances hilarious come the far too early morning dawn.
But she forgave them for that.

The way they extracted her by bribing the creature with a basket of freshly caught fish in exchange for its new 'toy' was very much appreciated!

And the way they then commiserated with her and swapped stories of their own embarrassing predicaments with the apparently astoundingly ancient but not precisely clever monster helped soothe her pride.

Breakfast was also nice.

She never found out precisely where her Lady Jewel had gone off too. But her new found friends among the Menagerie staff were eager to trade coin, gossip and favors for her further assistance with the Sphinx.

Although between the two of them Adelyne was only half sure they fully understood one another.
"She mustly like you right good well! Didn't nothing even bruise, scrape or nibble you at all! No maimery! Stranger fools don't often end up so unscathed clean with the darling beast fiend. Good impression work you made."

Adelyne was sure there was some duty she had to attend to for her Lady and begged off more time with the terrifying giant monster for it. Which was far more horrifying to witness in full daylight up close then as a vague presence in the dark.

However after finding her way back into the quarters set aside for Jewel it took some doing to actually get the duties she had claimed to have.

Muriel finally found somewhere to put her that did not involve anything to do with kitchens.

Everyone had found it was best if Adelyne never was involved in the preparation of food.

She was among them.

And that was how she ended up standing in the utterly astonishing feasting hall of the High King of the Realm of Cantor Reborn.

The touch of all these people's eyes on her skin still felt constricting.

But a morning amongst other servants and out in daylight along with the suffocating presence of the Sphinx' own awareness when she woke let her avoid freezing in place.

She could force her way into visibility and attention gathering if needed.

Make her feet land heavy enough to be heard.

Even speaking loud enough others would catch her voice and turn to look at her.

But whatever sorcery Fizzbunches had put upon her did not make any of it pleasant.

Like willingly walking through thick cobwebs every time she spoke.

Still this was the duty her Lady had for Adelyne (well mostly her Lady's Captain but same difference).

She stood to one side, a bit behind Muriel's left. But well in front of the footmen Jewel had brought with her as an entourage.

The Count Consort was opposite Muriel on Jewel's right.

The Countess and Shining Wyrm of Viznove was ahead of her, and behind her. The vastness of the dragon spread around in a way that probably disrupted the usual parameters of idiot nobles and honorable seating or whatever nonsense.

But the foremost parts of Jewel were at the head of the party. Well into the middle of the vast horse shoe of a feasting table the High King sat behind.

Elevated uselessly, the man was on his chair raised upon a platform.

Jewel was only below his gaze because of the precise posture she had taken.

He was speaking with some of that weird tone that meant it was a practiced speech of some stuffy noble bullshit.

The words also were hard to follow and not all of them sounded right to Adelyne's ear.

But still she thought she had the sense of it. The distraction of random glances wrapping over her made it hard to pay attention to him.

He'd asked a question or service of Jewel?

She was going to give her answer or report or something?

"High King Mathias of House Stein, I can give you my judgment. On the act of Sorcery wrought by the workings of Lord Sorcerer Jaksa the Red, Lord Sorcerer and Court Wizard Erhard Ironhand, the priesthood of Asherah and their god."

That sounded like a great many very dangerous people and things who probably did something astoundingly powerful. Just the two Wizards Adelyne had met were terrifying in their own right. And she had been told plenty by the temples about how dangerous involving gods were, priesthood present or not.

It made the High King's Request all fancy-like a bit more sensible and also probably explained what they were doing last night.

At the thought of the night it was only by that smug fuck Fizzbunche's boon that she could stifle the yawn trying to tear its way loose out of her mouth. Her duty was to stand here as part of her lady's court.

The High King said some more things in words that were only somewhat legible as anything spoken in the Ridgetail's valleys.

Stars and fortunes damn her Adelyne was so tired.

It was short though and was mostly along the lines of asking for Jewel to continue.

Probably.

Honestly, why were so few people in this place able to speak plainly?

Even most of the local servants spoke half nonsense.

Jewel was far more understandable. Well, besides her accent sounding like some grass stained sheep herd imitating a noble, But that was normal.

Adelyne blinked hard to try and stay awake.

"My judgment of the working is such, those touched by it are no more or less loyal or commandable then the men or women they once were. They are no more safe or docile than any other subject of the High King."

The way that the High King on his throne was smiling made Adelyne think despite her best efforts the lady Jewel had failed to win whatever this exchange was.

Adelyne didn't frown or fidget, but only because she could feel how that would drag the crowd's eyes all over her if she did. This awful pit of Nobles, many of them wearing more finery and baubles than a simple little street child like her had ever seen in her entire life combined and doubled.

The rich fucks. She could have fed every child in Kaeketeh on just the pearls around that one woman's neck.

Fed them for a year even!

The High King then said something that sounded mostly like he was bringing up what the payment for this service Jewel had done to him would be. And that was when Adelyne reassessed who precisely was getting out the better in whatever business this was.

She knew her Lady Jewel, she knew the tells the wyrm mostly failed to hide because she didn't seem to quite understand she even had them.

The way that her scales would tremble and stick out from the roots, the way the hairs of her mane could move.

How her eyes could shine. Really everything but her face could scream the mood of the Wyrm if you knew her.

Sometimes her tufted tail would flick in excitement while the rest of her went utterly still!

Adelyne could see most of the people in this room besides the High King himself seemed unaware. But she saw some small worry entering his bearing, and could feel how he would jump if she just shouted.

Her Lady spoke softly.

"The Boon I ask is a simple one, The County of Viznove shall remain a vassal of the Realm of Cantor Reborn. All debts once owed to the Late Countess Bathory shall transfer to my own person instead of being voided by her death."

There was a wince from the High King at that, a visible wince. There was also a murmuring of the nobles around the table and room, Adelyne was not sure but it sounded like perhaps quite a lot of coin had been owed to the bloody countess.

Enough silver that it made these opulent peacocks take note.

"Furthermore on the trade of Wyrmspun Wool in fabric or thread from the Barony of Rochford a simple request is made."

That drew much confusion among the rich nobles present and the High King as well. Only a few faces showed shock and the High King was not one of them.

"I request that the High King decree all tithe, tax or tariff within the Realm held directly by the High King or indirectly via vassals shall be annulled for such goods. No silver to be paid on its transit into or out of such lands except that claimed by honest merchants selling their wares. Excepting of course the local tax owed to Viznove as a good of my County."

The puzzled looks on most of the faces continued. Although that one noble that was wearing far too many colors and the pearl wearing Lady looked stricken with something curse-like.

Most of the rest were still murmuring about Jewel's first declaration.

However despite whatever troubled the rainbow noble and the pearl woman over the matter nothing was done to stop the High King. He peered over the other guests at his table then turned to Jewel and nodded solemnly.

Adelyne had seen fraudsters work the crowds.

The High King Mathias was acting like he had understood the situation.

But Adelyne could practically smell how clueless he was.

"For your service I find this a fair boon and welcome. With that I acknowledge you as my vassal, Lady Jewel of House Rochford, Countess and Shining Wyrm of Viznove! May you remain the bulwark of the Realm against its southern enemies."

Again Adelyne held back a yawn.

Just barely avoided being smothered by the glances it would bring.

Scribes were writing furiously, then parchment was offered to the High King to seal as a proclamation.

Jewel bowed low now, actually bringing her chin to nearly touch the floor. To the other nobles it looked like a supplication to the High King's authority. But Adelyne could see how hard her lady was struggling to keep her tail still. And she was failing to keep the very tip of it from flicking.

This was somehow a victory for her lady.

Although Adelyne had no idea how.

She needed a solid night of rest in an actual bed!

 

[Nighzmarquls]

12.i

It is the thirty-fourth day of my investigation into the use of transmutation and flesh shaping as a cure for the sorcerous malady.

The sow is now of the correct proportion, weight and posture of my chosen patient. The blood and other humors are that of a human woman. All the digits are proportionate and correct. All viscera is as I know it should be. The face and hair are a poor match however.

From my previous attempts I believe that the features of the skull and the flow of the fluids within it are a vital element so I shall endeavor to perform these exactly as I can feel them within the patient.

It is the seventy-sixth day of the work and I have found disquieting and disturbing results. An accurate and complete matching of the flow of blood and humors within the skull and the meat and fats therein has created a truly wretched creature.

While lacking in the speed, strength, or resistance to sorcery that the afflicted possess it lacks not the hunger that defines them.

When I came to check on the transmuted sow this morning it had expired, having bit off and swallowed its own tongue, then swallowed blood until it expired.

I shall have to try again.

It is the thirtieth day of my fifth attempt at this avenue of investigation. After consulting with Fizzbunches, Urul and the methodology documented by Gorragata I have concluded that symptoms of the malady are being conveyed by the shaping of the tissues within the skull. This subject will be marked by a total absence of attempts to perform any alterations within the skull of the sow.

First day of my sixth attempt. Leaving the tissue within the skull completely untouched through the transmutation of a pig to a human is fatal. I shall focus on trying to find the minimum needed.

Ninety-second day of my eighth attempt. By first shaping the sow into the image of a peasant girl of similar age and build to the patient including the tissue within the skull, then shaping the result into that of the afflicted but leaving those tissues carefully untouched, progress has been made.

First Year and twenty days of the ninth attempt of finding a cure for the malady through investigative transmutation.

The sow appears exactly as the victim once did, but is beset with tremors, incoherent strangled crying, difficulty breathing and incontinence of all bodily functions.

I am missing something.

Second Year and four days of the ninth attempt. With constant care, attention and gentle sorcery applied within the skull, neck, and face focusing especially on restoring vitality within the blood the sow has gained powers of speech, mobility and fragmentary memory.

However said memory is not of the original afflicted despite external appearances and near identical shape and form within the body (excepting of course the interior of the skull and the healing and growths which followed).

This discrepancy brings the transmuted sow great distress.

Third Year and nine days of the ninth attempt. I am finding it difficult to continue this research. But for the sake of my patients I must strive onward.

The girl, for I cannot in good conscience still call her a sow or pig despite her origins, speaks, feels, remembers and acts healthy if mildly disoriented. I have performed delicate adjustments to the shapes within her skull in an attempt to match to those my truth recalls from the afflicted before their expression of the disease.

But it is very slow, if too much changes while she is awake she grows terribly distraught or begins to express seizures and great pain.

But if equivalent changes are performed while she sleeps or is unconscious she does not wake.

Progress is much slower now as I have had to reverse course numerous times to avoid wasting all my work so far.

I am both saddened and relieved that things have progressed to a point she no longer is pained by clear memories of either the peasant girl's family nor yet showed signs of knowing the family of the afflicted.

Fourth Year and fifty days of the ninth attempt. Bathory has finally approved the feeding of one of the afflicted so they regain the powers of speech and thought.

Cooperation with the patient was exceedingly difficult to secure. Restraints remain a requirement. A Bribery of blood has managed to maintain a semblance of engagement and adherence to procedure at my request.

Proximity between the girl and the afflicted has so far shown no signs of transference of the curse despite both having what appear to be near identical memories.

I will need to work carefully when moving onto more direct interactions and verifications.

Fourth Year and sixty days of the ninth attempt. I had to undo the girl's memory of today. The afflicted recognized what she was and what she knew. No signs of transference of the disease but my patient found ways to drive the girl to a panic despite this.

As already noted all attempts to undo the afflicted's memories failed. My sorcery as always struggles to even touch them.

Fifth Year and five days of the ninth attempt.

I can't do this anymore.

Everything I've tried my patient seeks to subvert. And besides contact with the girl makes the afflicted's condition worse. Hunger that would normally have taken months to express can be brought upon in hours under particularly stressful interactions.

The accusations have also cut even deeper than normal.

I will not put to paper what was said to me.

This entry shall mark the abandoning of this line of inquiry. Transmutation does not hold the answer I seek.

The girl has been released to the family of my original patient with a pardon for her crimes and more than enough dispensation to see her comfortable for the rest of her life. I will check in every few years but I expect she will do fine. The tears of relief when she embraced her father seem proof of that.

If only I could give my charges the relief from suffering as she will have.

-Research notes of Jaksa the Red, Court Wizard of the Countess Bathory of Viznove.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

12.ii

It has been twenty-three years since I came this way.

Seeing it again brings me to reminisce.

I now lead our caravan in the place of my father. I have seen so many things but somehow I had not expected the valley of Shialtza to ever change.

Yet when we arrived the calm pace and simple village was gone. Replaced by a bustling fortress town and harried field workers. The monastery on its peak was rubble and instead of being guided by farmers an escort of armored and armed soldiers led us to a fortress where the town had once been.

They welcomed and bought the load of silk we carried but to my shock the god wyrm was apparently dead.

Our host claimed his father slayed the creature whom the peak carried the namesake of but when I asked a villager they confided that the god wyrm had perished years before the man's father and his soldiers came.

The scales he had fashioned into armor and the skull which adorned his feasting hall had been plundered from Shialtza's tomb.

Of the two of us it was not I who expected to live the longer.

It has been a long day and the lord of the valley's feast demanded heavy drinking to avoid insult. I will inquire into the further truth of Shialtza's death in the morning with the villagers.

-Excerpt from the travel log Pythra of Veracules

 

[Zaealix]

…Hrrrm…
So I'm wondering if this is what Fizz planned or if it was a way to prepare Adeline for something else…Smug as that cat is he does strike me as the sort to have Rin problems where some dumb fool thing crops up out of nowhere and sends everything crashing down…

 

[Rayne-of-Faerie]

…Hrrrm…
So I'm wondering if this is what Fizz planned or if it was a way to prepare Adeline for something else…Smug as that cat is he does strike me as the sort to have Rin problems where some dumb fool thing crops up out of nowhere and sends everything crashing down…

Click to shrink...

I'm waiting for him to BE the random thing causing all sorts of problems to come down. My cats are great at that. Do it every night.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

13.1

That morning Jewel found the corpse that had been Franziska in the gardens of the palace.

And she was struck with stillness at the sight.

The thing that only looked like a woman was beaming, smiling with seeming delight. Fussing over a toddling child in an infant's smock.

Her voice sounded animated, alive, gentle.

Her touch was careful.

But Jewel could see the way her eyes, nostrils and lips still trembled with a sucking hunger.

She could smell and feel the pit in the world inside her chest.

Yet there was not a single sign of any of the monosyllabic flatness to the figure before her.

She watched the pair of them wander through the gardens until some matter had them leave further into the palace.

Another monster in the High King's collection.

Held by its own form of leash.

The business for the Countess of Viznove in the Capital was done, the year was growing late and autumn would soon be fully arrived. There was at present no further business for her here and Kaeketeh despite assurances sent by bird to the contrary probably was secretly on fire.

They would need to depart if they did not want to risk the sky way in full winter. Although Thurzó assured that the seasons had little sway on the temperature at such heights.

So depart soon Jewel would.

But they still had one more day before leaving for home.

And she had found exploring the gardens which hosted the more 'tame' members of Mathias' menagerie equal parts soothing and disquieting. All the more for just how many of them could speak. Although most Jewel found were rather simple.

When she had heard and thought of the menagerie before Jewel had imagined pens, cages, like some dogs or chickens were kept in.

She had imagined dungeons and pits and chains.

But what she found in the capital was gardens, open skies, attendants.

Even the war beasts who could not be allowed free roam were carefully given guidance under open sky.

The thing which Countess Bathory had threatened Jewel and her family with was a disturbingly peaceful place. A seeming paradise full of beings that while not precisely Wyrms were inhuman and different while still able to speak.

It began to paint a picture of perhaps why simply being able to converse did not in fact garner respect from all the strangers she met.

If the world had such creatures as these in it?

A family of foxes with human faces that only sang in meandering and incomprehensible rhymes. Laughed and danced, but otherwise happily and bloodily ate mice like any hunting dog.

Something blinding white with solid violet eyes and a mane which never was still, four-legged and so saturated in divine intervention its every single hair and prominent horn cut the air itself apart in its passing.

That utterly blinding white blade jutting from its brow seemed always just barely on the verge of calling the sky itself down.
The cloven hoofed steps dragging flowers and ferns into bloom from its footprints.

And speaking in a language only the small crowd of scholars that followed it could understand.

The stink of dung and compost was almost chokingly thick in the grounds where it was allowed to roam. And the soil after its passing left a taste like old dry ash under fresh burgeoning life whenever it was moved elsewhere.

Jewel had watched a wizened old woman and the white creature have an incomprehensible argument along one of the foot paths. She was not entirely sure of the providence of it but she thought it might be an attempt to stop it from stepping on the stones and damaging them with spontaneous plant growth.

She did not know what words were spoken but there were far too many repetitions of the same utterances for her to judge this was a particularly complex discussion.

The Sphinx was perhaps one of the cleverest beasts in the entire menagerie that Jewel had met. But even then after dealing with it a few evenings she was left somewhat disappointed. Speaking to the overly large cat with diminutive black wings made Jewel think more of what Zephyrvam might say if he had the throat and words for it.

All of the beasts in the menagerie, whether dangerous or tame. All had in them a character that left Jewel disquieted.

Bethica could argue circles around those scholars from what she had learned speaking to them.

Celsus?

Jewel actually might have to offer an invitation for some of them to try and match wits with the bull.

No.

There was nothing here like what Jewel expected.

Neither fully simple beasts.

But also not something she could say were her peers. Jewel felt more in common with peasants than these wards of the high king.

Despite the insistence of the sphinx to refer to Jewel like she was somehow related to it.

No.

The gardens were pleasant but they were as much a cage and a dungeon as Jewel's nightmares had conjured.

The shackles were not obvious but there were still chains.

Jewel was troubled however by just how many of those restraints seemed to be the simple fact of making those in the High King's collection comfortable and happy.

If Bathory had not intervened to keep her with her family and Jewel had grown up here instead of Rochford?

Would she be so simple and content as the Sphinx?

Perhaps able to speak, reason and so much more, but trapped by her own ignorance and complacency?

Or perhaps like the terrible living corpse would Mathias have used her family and her love for them?

Given them finery and opulence so they would act as the bars and chains for Jewel's imprisonment?

Invisible fetters to placate her except for an occasional call to war?

Would Jewel raised in the beauty and peace of this menagerie ever have chosen to live as she did now?

Would she have even cared about the men she was called to destroy?

A shudder ran up and down her coils at the thought of it. Her inner flame flared higher at the intangible threat. It reminded her of Tsulogothulan's words of Jewel's elder 'sister'.

The nameless Rat Wyrm who still lived content with her family of vermin.

Kept small and happy and simple as any beast by circumstance.

Jewel shivered again, felt the ripples of her scales rattling cross past one another up and down then ruffled her wings and shook her head.

She could not wait to return home.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

13.2

The trip up to and back down from the sky way was surprisingly gentler and less severe then they had to suffer on the way to the capital.

The Valley of Man's side in general seemed to have a gentler transition regardless of the time of year but well into autumn the Ridgetail side seemed to be somewhat calmed for the day they made their crossing and descent.

Jewel was thankful for it.

She didn't like being swaddled like an infant and then further wrapped in what felt like an entire bolt of heavy wool and fur before being squeezed into the space in front of Paul. Oxhoof had not complained but she imagined the extra weight was not something the mare appreciated either.

Both her selves could hear the heavy nicker whenever they stopped for the night and undid her saddle.

But as much as the clothing against the biting chill of the pass was annoying, the cold was so much worse in her smaller body.

No matter how much wyrmflame coursed through her flesh the terrible wind could sap every ounce of strength out of Gem. She was also thankful for the opportunity to be away from the capital and all the direct vassals and their preening and false (or even genuine) dotting on Jewel as her spawn.

It had been a great boon to the work and training her mother gave her.

No one expected even a wyrm spawn child of Gem's stature to listen quite so intently or understand so clearly.

Nevermind that her snout was not just for show and mockery (or in a few peculiar cases actual praise and admiration). She lacked the full capacity of her larger mother-self's senses. But even diminished, she thought she probably had a better nose than a cat.

Definitely better than some of those 'court hounds' some of the ladies in the capital carried around like surrogate children.

They way some of them acted with the beasts Jewel might have thought they were some kind of accursed offspring of the poor women. But no her nose was quite clear on this, the dogs were simply dogs.

A few of them seemed as tired of the whole affair as Jewel was with her own showing as a court child.

They seemed to appreciate how Jewel as Gem gave them the benefit of their consent before she tried to touch them. Which had earned her praise from their 'owners' and snide remarks how a beast-touched child would get along with beasts.

There had not really been many children in the palace itself.

And the ones that Jewel knew of were far too close to the terrifying monster of a woman-corpse-thing her larger self had interrogated.

And Jewel knew she could not tell the children why she didn't want to go anywhere near the 'nice red haired lady and her son' so she just played at being shy and stuck close to Smithson or Paul when she didn't need to be seen with her family somewhere for proprietary reasons.

Was this how Alexander felt?

Was this what Gwenn was going through already?

She'd put in the work to ask her sister/aunt/twin about it when they got back to Rochford.

For now her larger self sighed heavily.

"It would probably be for the best that all of you learned the Valasect Cants."

Muriel raised a brow while soaking her travel bread ration in the trail-stew that Dariusz had taken to making when their route would not make it to a halfway-house or otherwise provide full kitchens for preparing the meal.

It was surprisingly good and rich although apparently required some considerable preparation before departure to make it ready for travel. It allowed a good meal on the road.

Paul and Smithson only nodded along. Although the count consort was more hesitant.

Jewel explained as she shifted her coils nearer their campfire.

"It's so you can better communicate with Gem when we are apart. I can understand your words perfectly fine, but speaking is hard."

Her husband looked over at Gem. He'd been a bit more distant with her since fully realizing the connection between wyrm and spawn. Not cruelly so, but it made Jewel miss when he readily embraced her without any hesitation.

The way he touched Gem now was always with a near flinch, like she would burn him or something. The thought of it brought tears to her smaller self's eyes when she was alone.

"Wouldn't it be better to further practice speech?" He turned to Jewel's larger self when he spoke. Even when he was ostensibly talking to Gem. Which was another thing that made something ache in her chest.

Her fingers found their way to the gesture for 'stupid mean oaf' before she even could realize it was happening. Finding her smaller self was on the verge of openly wailing, Jewel focused on squeezing her eyes shut to try and hide the welling tears as she spun in her place in Smithson's lap and pressed her face against his chest.

Jewel had to keep her tone even and calm in her larger throat.

"We will keep practicing Gem's speech, but it's not hard to learn a cant, and if you three know it we can begin teaching it to the Valasect footmen and perhaps even the Kaeketeh Guard."

Smithson considered Jewel. His hand gently rubbed her spawn's back.

"This is for more reasons than just so it's easier for Gem to communicate."
Jewel nodded her larger head, letting her frustration with Paul stay hidden on the smaller face. They could have words in private about this, but the road was not the time or place for it.

"The Children in Valasect are using the cant to pass messages silently while in the woods, during hunts, and to gossip across entire farm fields without having to use their voices. They can have entire conversations even when non-fluent adults are among them."

Muriel hummed at that and nodded along.

"The ability to pass words silently has a lot of potential, Scouts definitely would have a use for it."

A voice that Jewel had completely forgotten about picked up from the place she had been sitting to the left of the wyrm's coils.

Adelyne had completely slipped Jewel's mind. So quietly she was sitting there.

"I'd like to learn this hand-talk the dragon's git uses too. Could be useful for my brats on the street as well. If country-softies can learn, it can't be too hard."

Paul huffed and glared at Jewel's bond servant.

"Teach this to those rats and they will be using it for thieving somehow before the day is out."

The maybe-still-thief snorted and flipped her nose at him.

"Course they will! Make em better at it too. But that's good! good silent thieves all over Kaeketeh working for the Lady's interests? All official like."

Jewel stared down at the probably-still-but-also-loyal-thief and sighed heavily.

"I was joking when I said Kaeketeh probably had a thieves guild."

Adelyne's grin in the dark somehow caught the firelight just right to make her teeth look sharper and her eyes almost seemed to have a waifish shine to them.

"Now that you've brought it up my lady"

Paul glared at Adelyne.

"This is absurd! A Guild is a prestigious and most importantly recognized and legal institution! You can't have an officially recognized Guild for Thieves! They're a myth! A Tavern story!"

Adelyne nodded solemnly.

"Of course there ain't no guild for thieves."

Jewel relaxed a bit at the admittance the world was not entirely insane.

Adelyne's voice however froze her still.

"That's why we should start one!"