Chapter 38 – Shadow of the Dragon (Patreon)

Pain consumed Jimmy’s life, filling in every crack and crevice of his battered soul.

He would be the first to admit he was no boy scout, but he didn’t think he deserved to be tortured to death.

Then his memory kicked in and he remembered.

He had fallen what seemed like an impossibly long way. He wasn’t as fast or nimble like Glenn. Though the kid had tried to save him, there was nothing he could do about Jimmy’s heavy armor or his slow response.

There had been no hope once they were launched over that massive drain.

Jimmy had fallen so long that he wasn’t entirely sure he would ever hit the bottom. He hit several beams of rotten wood on the way down, but he should be dead, not in agony.

He didn’t remember hitting the ground, yet he was no longer falling. That much he was sure of.

Risking it, Jimmy cracked an eye open and found it hard. Something had nearly glued his lids shut. His arms were utterly useless. The limbs were limp and lifeless hunks of meat that somehow radiated excruciating pain.

Maybe not so dead after all, he thought. Despite the agony, Jimmy didn’t wallow in despair and misery.

He wanted to live. He wanted his second chance at another life back. Somehow, his survival instinct refused to give up the ghost.

Forcing his eyes open, dried mud crumbled and cascaded off his cheekbones.

Mutated people encircled his prone body. They chanted with their weirdly stretched mouths, the gills on the sides of their bloated necks opening and closing in tune with the beat. Their scales shimmered in green, blue, and purple luminescent hues.

If not for their bloated, elongated bodies, they might have been beautiful.

One, prettier and crueler than the rest, knelt by his side. A necklace of teeth rattled around her oozing throat.

She grinned at him, and Jimmy really wished she wouldn’t. Her black-green shark teeth were deeply unsettling, doubly so for getting so close to him.

Even though his body was racked with pain, he tried to fight back against the cold clammy hands holding him down into the mud. And yet, his resistance was futile.

Jimmy knew enough when to give in, which seemed to please the woman.

A fish with boobs,he thought. Not that I’m one to judge but… how does that work?

The woman tilted her head at him, then he heard her voice reverberating in his skull. I am not a fish, she chided him, though her voice sounded… amused.

Swallow this if you wish to live, she told him, offering him a cup of something and pressing it to his lips.

Jimmy would have sold his soul to the devil if he hadn’t already for another chance at life.

Despite the Innsmouth horror show all around him, he willingly accepted the fish-woman’s gift and drank greedily.

It was like swallowing putrid swamp mud, which he figured it probably was considering what he was half-submerged in.

Good, she told him, keep going. The Change will be upon you soon, and then you will rise again, stronger. Like us, like all of us.

Jimmy didn’t want to be a fish person, but he wanted to be dead much less, so he submitted to the strange ritual. If this was his next stage of existence, then fine, so long as it was an actual life.

Every gulp of the foul mud was easier than the last to keep down. By the end, he didn’t even notice how foul or thick it was.

Forcing a smile on his muddy lips, Jimmy said, “Thank you, I feel much better.”

He only wanted to get out of there, but there was a ring of truth to his words. The worst of his pain was gone. It was replaced by an alarming itching sensation all over his body and a feeling like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

The woman stood up and planted a foot on his armored chest. Not yet, she told him. There is one more thing that must be done before the Change is complete. You will thank us for this.

Jimmy had seen that look before. Cultists and religious zealots deep in the hinterlands from his military days. The stuff of nightmares.

He struggled, suddenly sure that he wanted to be anywhere but here. That sharklike smile was the last thing Jimmy saw as the woman pushed down on his chest, submerging Jimmy deeper and deeper into the mud until it swallowed him entirely.

Though he tried his best to hold his breath, eventually he had no choice. Mud, thick and viscous, flowed into his lungs and set them afire.

As the last of Jimmy’s life faded away in the thudding darkness of the mud pit, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he deserved this.

***

Luke stood before an obelisk of night-black stone.

He found out pretty quickly that deviating too far from the Dragon had some interesting effects. Namely, the world began to fade as if it didn’t exist, turning into shades of gray and then eventually to an empty expanse of white.

It reminded him too much of that place with the auditor. Luke wasn’t keen on another face-to-face with something he couldn’t permanently kill. Much less something that was so strong he likely only managed to beat it once by sheer surprise.

If I was an omnipotent–or nearly omnipotent–creature, I’d be pretty damn surprised if I fought back too.

But he couldn’t count on that working again. The auditor would know he could fight back and presumably would plan accordingly. He’d need another trick if they crossed paths again.

Luke was certain that they would. Somehow, he could feel the seeking gaze of the auditor searching for him.

Fortunately, another doorway hadn’t appeared. He had figured out there must be another vision to visit and assumed that lingering too long would risk being pursued by that auditor.

The [Cipher Sword] worked well against that inhuman thing, but defeating it was extremely temporary.

This was a battle of attrition, and one where Luke was working to find the truth behind his connection to the Discordant Dragon. What else could this Dungeon be for?

He had expected more traps and tombs to rob, and less a maze across realities.

Luke had to continually get lucky against the auditor, whereas the auditor only had to get lucky once. Luke only had the single life. He was pretty sure he wasn’t immune to whatever the auditor could do to him.

Whatever soul erasure was sounded final.

The Dragon stared at the obelisk as if it held the multiverse’s greatest secrets. Something about it looked… off, like it wanted to move if he looked away.

Feeling more confident that this was just a memory, Luke stepped through the Dragon to inhabit the same space as him. This resulted in an odd, disquieting feeling. Chills ran up and down his spine, but he held his ground and stared at the exact point of the obelisk that the Dragon did.

There was a connection between the two of them. Luke just didn’t know what.

The strange runes engraved on the obelisk did not suddenly shift and illuminate him. They did not comply with his racial ability that allowed him to understand all languages. If he was honest with himself, it was worrying.

It suggested that this obelisk was beyond the scope of the ability. Since [Mother of All Tongues] plainly stated he could understand all races in all forms across the multiverse, Luke figured he should be capable of reading the runes.

Is there something older than the System? Luke found himself wondering.

Something about his bloodline had mentioned “precursor” as if it was older than the System. Luke pulled it up again.

[Mark of the Shadow Lord]

Bloodlines form the basis of many great Guilds and Sects, even entire Empires. Even among those, yours is exceptional. A Precursor Bloodline, one not seen for eons and unable to be passed on from its original creators due to corruption. The Mark of the Shadow Lord has found its new home in you. Enhances extrasensory awareness within shadow. Grants minor control over shadows. Enhances reflexes and reaction times. +5% Dexterity.

“If we assume that a Precursor Bloodline is one that predates the System… then this thing might also be from a time before the System existed.”

Luke stepped out of the Dragon’s body and looked at him. “How is it that you have this? If you’re a god or ultra-powerful creature, doesn’t that mean you’re also bound by the System?”

Turning back to the obelisk, Luke caught sight of a shadowy ball of energy that floated off the obelisk. It moved inexorably toward the Dragon who looked unsettled by what he saw but stood his ground.

Reaching a hand toward it, Luke winced slightly as he grasped hold of the orb of shadow.

Everything went black.

When he opened his eyes again, he realized he was only able to see by way of his bloodline. He was somewhere utterly lightless with unsettling shadowy creatures with too many tentacles and teeth writhing around just out of his periphery.

The Dragon was nowhere to be seen.

Walking forward, Luke felt the ground with each step until he realized that it wasn’t really there. He wasn’t physically there. It was an odd realization to have when every sense in his body told him that he was walking in a lightless abyss with chittering otherworldly monsters trying to get in.

And yet, Luke felt protected here. Like a child in his parents’ shadow.

A disembodied voice began speaking in no language that Luke could understand. His racial ability did not translate it.

He felt the meaning reverberate in his blood. Though he could not hope to understand the deeply complex syntax and intonations of this musical language, he grasped the meaning well enough.

It came to him like glittering motes of starlight spreading across his inner eye, much like a System prompt might. Only, Luke had never heard a System notification before.

The history of the Liarc stretches back into ancient times, so far into the fog of the past that the origin of our ancestors is lost even to us. What is clear, however, is that there is a future for those of our Blood. Those who we must shepherd and guide, lest all fall to wrack and ruin.

Darkness gathers on the horizon. We have prepared these Seeing Stones, so that those of our Blood may understand the gifts that have been bestowed upon them, and that they might awaken the power of their Blood before it is too late.

Luke snapped back into his body, sweating, and feeling as if he had just run dozens of miles. A glance to his left showed the Dragon with the same expression of fatigue and surprise, though he wasn’t nearly collapsing to the ground like Luke.

Bloodline Synchronization: 47%

Luke stared at the notification as his body suddenly caught aflame with fever. He couldn’t breathe, then his legs gave out.

Luke collapsed to the ground, the runic sword skittering across the ground from his numbed fingers.

The world around him began to blur and tear at the edges into drifts of light and shadow. He knew if he left the sword here, it would be gone forever, but his entire body felt like somebody had given him anesthesia.

Even thinking was difficult, but Luke forced his way through the cobwebs clogging cogent thought and flopped forward like a fish.

Just as the world vanished around him, Luke’s fist closed on the silver pen that was the [Cipher Sword].

Something about it felt… warm and comforting, as if it was a piece of his history.

The world vanished, leaving Luke alone with the sword and his thoughts.