The Power of Ten

Chapter 13-364: The Dragonbound

In addition to creating a wall for the people of Waterdown, I also totally redid their settlements, particularly the cliff caves.

They gaped as I rapidly turned the whole cliff-face into basically a reinforced and planned-out apartment building, helping interconnect rooms and making them fairly uniform in size, put out balconies, added store rooms and more living space, some large storm doors on rollers that could block attackers, evacuation routes, decent stairs, plumbing, and a water supply.

Outside, I made the roads even and smooth, simple to traverse, with better drainage. Evacuation shelters, underground tunnels, and hardpoints were put in to balance things off, buildings protected from aerial assault and made of stone, and I even made up thousands of cubic feet of building blocks and stone slates for making additional buildings of their own if they were of a mind.

Barns, corrals, lower fences, and the like finished off what I was doing, as the residents of Waterdown gaped at everything I was doing. When I added a plaza with an artesian fountain, topped by spouting water from flying airplanes and battleships, they all cheered despite themselves at everything I’d done.

Yeah, it had skipped a lot of personal labor, but you know, sometimes decent people need decent stuff to happen to them, and these men were without a doubt the best thing that had come the way of the natives here ever.

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“We’ll probably be getting visitors tomorrow,” the Professor informed me, while we sipped herbal tea supplied by Matron Osellyi.

“Oh?” I asked him, while he and his wife sighed, looking out over the sea and the wrecks from their new balcony, and the excellently-done wooden chairs he’d moved out here. He was particularly grateful for the glass doors inside the recessing stone plates he could slide closed.

“Our nearest neighbors across the inlet here are the Korsars. They are naturally enough men who are descended from ships that came down in earlier centuries, with many a rogue or buccaneer among their forebears. One could say they’ve adapted well to the life and attitude down here, and they’ve managed to keep up with their cannons and gunpowder well enough to dominate all the shipping and naval powers around this place. Add in some hydromancers and sea priests, and they’ve built themselves a power base even the Mhar Empire has to respect.”

“I take it those cannons up top were enough to gain their respect, and actual bullet-using firearms moreso.”

“Yes, we out-range them and out-hit them, although they’ve numbers and are savage enough. It’s been many years since they’ve bothered to attack, and if they stay friendly, we are as well.”

“But they saw the Vortex and will want to know if anything interesting came through. I understand.” I frowned slightly. “I told you of what is going to happen when the Shroud comes down. Without black powder, these Korsars will suffer a devastating hit when their supplies detonate. In addition, you are going to need considerably more magical power to be able to survive once things go south.” I tilted my head slightly. “Save for your reliance on firearms, you are actually much more prepared for what is coming than most surface-worlders are, Professor.”

“The thought had occurred to me.” He took a sip of his tea, thinking somberly. “We cannot see the Haze here, although the two Shroudzones are ominous enough, and have grown over the years. Is the threat truly so dire?”

“Professor, were I in your shoes, I would prepare to decamp your entire population, move to just outside the Deadzone of one of those two Shrouds, and Level as if your life depends on it, for it does.” I nodded at the Matron. “Magic solves many problems, and powerful magic solves more of them and faster. Skill and aptitude are there to be learned, the magic of Karma to be put to use by the Powered and the Primos.

“Even if you don’t intend to use the strength you gain to found an empire or something, it will be enough to defend you from an empire, and that should be reason enough to take this step.”

“Why will our lives depend on it?” he asked shrewdly. “There is magic now, and it is not so game-changing.”

“Without firearms?” I asked archly, and he paused. “More importantly... I’m sorry, Professor, but you have absolutely no exposure to higher-Valence, truly offensive magic. For instance, Summonings. Do you have any idea how uninhibited high-Level Summoners tend to be with their minions?

“What happens when Necromancers don’t need to worry about the Shroud grabbing control of their undead, or the Curse of the Sun? When truly powerful mind-controllers start Geasing, Charming, and Dominating the piss out of everyone and everything, turning anyone who can’t resist them into a puppet for their desires?

“When Transmuters start transforming people into monstrous forms that are more useful for them? When Illusionists cloak the world in lies and falsehood? When Diviners pry into all the corners and find all the secrets everyone keeps hidden, and pull the strings of everyone while thought-policing any hint of rebellion?

“When the Faiths of the Old Gods using ALL of those methods start swarming out into the world demanding you convert or die screaming as your soul is sacrificed to the greater glory of some abomination that didn’t have the grace to die in prehistory?

“Who exactly is going to take care of those problems? Do you think the Divine are going to ride down on their shiny winged horses and save you, while you stand aside and cheer, doing nothing on your own?” I rolled my eyes at him, while he looked away and sighed.

“I have been fighting for a better place down here for over five decades, Lady Traveler,” he admitted after a long quiet. “And yet, only this one small slice of this world is a place worth living in.”

“And you never bothered to consider why?” I blew a raspberry, and he half-smiled despite himself. “It’s because you are a Ten, and you taught them it was a better place. But this is your limit. If you want to expand, you need more personal power, and you need people who believe in this dream who are also Tens.

“You can’t do it alone. Great dreams don’t demand a great man, they demand a lot of great people. I’m handing you the opportunity to make the people who follow you great, strong enough to expand on that dream, and you’re telling me you’re too tired to do it, instead of that finally, the one thing you’ve been waiting for has come?

“It’s time to be a teacher, and let your students out into the world. Even Amana the Mother, Patron of Peace itself, knows that you can’t win over everyone with love and kindness. There are people that can only be reasoned with using strength, and some of those people, with a blade in the heart.

“It is natural, it is expected. Building something good takes blood, sweat, and tears, not just sweat.

“And don’t think for a moment I believe that you are trapped here.” He stiffened despite himself. “You’re a Ten. You figured out how to get out of here, probably the same way you came, a long time ago. You stayed because you love this land and its people. Either take the next step to reinforce your dream so that it lasts after you are gone, or leave this place so you don’t get in their way.”

“You are observant. I should have expected that,” he admitted a tad ruefully.

“You are being condescending again. You must be seriously unused to people being intellectually superior to you,” I returned in the same level voice, and noticed his twitch. “Tell me, were you ever going to tell your people and your wife you are Dragonbound?”

There was a tinkle as the teacup and platter fell from his hands. His wife’s emerald eyes widened in shock, looking back and forth between us in disbelief.

“Oh, you thought you were being clever about it, only using passives and never actively calling on the power. Doubtless you think I Divined something and invaded your privacy, because you are simply too good at hiding the fact, when it is so bloody obvious anyone with half a brain could deduce it.”

He looked regretfully down at his cup, trying to recover his thoughts, and wincing at my admonishment. “Is that so?” he asked faintly.

“Yes. You aren’t using any kind of mana draw, so your Pact doesn’t actually show in your Aura. If I went looking for it, it’d be an obvious probe, and you’d know it. Since I haven’t done such a thing, obviously I used other methods, and obvious method is obvious.”

His cheek twitched as I tore down his smug intellectual superiority. “How, then, did I fail?”

“You don’t know?” I asked archly. “You’re one hundred and seventeen years old, Professor. You look like you’re in your late thirties, although you try to hide it with your beard going white early. You’re not Powered, or you’d have an obvious Aura. Likewise, you’re not a Warlock, or you wouldn’t be here sipping tea, you’d be out fighting. You didn’t know about it, so you missed your only chance to be Forsaken, and that would be obvious, too.

“That leaves the other kind of Pact, which is a Dragonbound Pact, which does not have the conflict obligations that a Warlock Pact has. Get a sufficiently lazy or intellectual dragon as a Patron, and you get at least some Pact abilities without having to go around and fight things... and the extra years of longevity.

“The upper world has very few dragons, and most of them are hostile to humans. There are many, many more dragons down here, especially in the Cloud Tiers, which you obviously know of after mentioning them, and so must have visited there.

“A. B. C. Obvious.”

His face fell slightly, and he looked to his wife in apology. “I am sorry, my dear. I know how your people feel about dragons.”

She was silent for a moment, looking at him with hurt eyes, obviously thinking of their long years together, looking for signs of betrayal or manipulation. At last, she closed her verdant eyes. “You did not figure out how to sabotage the Wardstones to escape from the Amethyst’s lair. It let you go,” she deduced, and he could only nod.josei

He sighed again. “I could have done so. I would have done so. But, not in time to save you. Thinking back, I realized Umryxigorz probably arranged the entire situation so as to leave me with no choice in the matter, and has withheld from pressuring me for anything more than occasional games of chess. I hazard that most of his servants are not of a cerebral mindset, and the dragon enjoys having an intelligent man sworn to him.”

“You are aware of exactly who this Dragon Queen neighbor is.” It wasn’t a question.

He glanced at me, and nodded slowly. “Yes. She is the demon daughter of a very powerful demonic elder dragon trapped here when the Shroud came down. She and her brother, the Divine Dragon God-Emperor of the Empire of the Cold Blood, grant Dragonbound Pacts to their most favored minions, and pass their bloodline into the world with great regularity. The majority of the scalefolk of the Cold Blood possess some measure of the Demon Dragon’s bloodline, and are controlled by their forebears.”

I settled back into the chair and looked at him. “As a human, you should find those things abhorrent to your very soul. You have been affected by the uncaring nature of your Patron, whether you want to realize it or not.

“Such little tricks with their progeny are common of evil dragons, infecting the local ecosphere with progeny to control everything around them. Neutral dragons manipulate others to contain the Bloodline infection of their rivals, or simply remain above the conflict, uncaring as long as they are not personally infringed upon, merely watching in interest as hapless mortals contend with their distant kin.

“Demonic bloodlines should not exist in the mortal realm. Draconic bloodlines, due to the domination by their ancestors, need to be closely contained or eliminated as well. This problem does not contain itself. It must be fought, and fought aggressively, for it spreads automatically and aggressively if not fought.

“Yet here you sit, just an observer doing nothing, smart and knowledgeable and civilized and above such petty matters.” I curled my lip. “Amethyst Dragonbound to the bone.”

He trembled at my assessment, and his face fell as his wife nodded slowly.