The Newt and Demon

There was nothing quite like being at ground-zero for a pressure still explosion. Theo dusted himself off after standing right next to one of Throk’s pressure stills after it blew up. At least he was within the Dreamwalk, immune to injuries. But he had only added the alchemical residue to the container, nothing else. The combination of heat and pressure was enough to set it off. At least he could use the iron paddles a few times before throwing them away… as long as he scraped the junk off of them first.

Boiling the residue only made it burn to the bottom of the pan. When Theo thought he was onto something with an idea about binding the residue with another element, the Dreamwalk blocked his progress. He jumped when Tresk snuck up behind him, stabbing him in the back.

“Not fast enough, baby!” she shouted. “We gotta get up.”

“Oh. Right. The dragon,” Theo said, nodding. “Is there enough room on Alex for me?”

“I am powerful,” Alex said, her forepaws flopping around. They weren’t quite like that of a dragon’s legs yet. But they were getting there. Slowly.

“You are very powerful,” Theo said. “What time is it, anyway?”

“I dunno about an hour before dawn,” Tresk said. “Still looks dark out there, ya know?”

“We should get going,” Theo said. “There’s gonna be a fight and a turtle at the wedding. Can’t miss the turtle.”

“I love the turtle wrastlin’.”

Sarisa and Rowan had awoken early, although Theo didn’t know how they had done so without an alarm clock. Rowan’s frequent trips to the bathroom during breakfast revealed they had consumed a lot of water the night before. Breakfast was leftover steak, which was always welcome. The alchemist didn’t find himself as hungry as the night before, barely eating much of his steak. Despite how delicious it was, he had only ever picked at his breakfast.

Standing outside of the manor before dawn had even broken, Theo looked Alex up and down. “How do you hold on?”

“For dear life,” Tresk said.

Alex dipped her head low enough for Theo to give her some pets. He rubbed the top of her head, finding the start of a pair of horns poking from underneath her feathers. He shook his head, climbing on her back awkwardly. Why Tresk had gone all this time without finding someone to make her a saddle was beyond him. But there was enough space between her wings and her neck for both to sit. He wouldn’t call it comfortable, but they were sitting.

“I’m taking no risks,” Theo said, holding a Retreat potion with the Featherfall modifier on it. He wrapped his arms around her neck and prepared for an uncomfortable experience. Only a moment in the air revealed how wise of a move that was. It wasn’t comfortable. Each stroke of Alex’s wings was an uncomfortable lurching sensation that threatened to reveal what little steak he had eaten that morning.

Alex was unforgiving with her speed, heading in a direction. Theo couldn’t tell what the direction was, as his face was buried in a mass of scales and feathers. The air grew colder and thinner before they finally landed on a ledge overlooking the region below. While it was still too dark to see anything, the alchemist suspected Broken Tusk was somewhere below.

“Why did I agree to this?” Theo asked, preparing to use his Earth Sorcerer’s Core. He didn’t need to see, though. Whatever happened to this dragon, it had been embedded in a layer of crumbled rock. A rock slide had encased it, only exposing some sections of bone to the elements.

“Just do your thing. I don’t wanna see a giant skeleton dragon running around.” Tresk folded her arms.

Theo shook his head, spreading his senses over the piles of rock. He wrapped his will around each thing that wasn’t a bone and lifted, separating the pile in the air to allow for the bones caught between to fall to the ground. With a flick of his will, he sent the stones sailing through the air and continued working. As he worked, he felt the energy of the bones soaking into the air. It became more oppressive as more of the bones were revealed.

“How strong was this dragon?” Theo asked, grunting as he tossed a house-sized rock into the distance.

“I don’t know, but it is delicious,” Alex said, snapping at a large bone. It was far too large for her to eat.

“Can you take the bones into your inventory?” Theo asked.

“No,” Tresk said, producing a comically large saw from nowhere. “They’re too big. The system complains when I try. We normally just come here and chip a bit off.”

Theo watched as Tresk pulled aside a massive bone, getting to work with her saw. In classic Tresk fashion, she had tried and failed to pull a bone into her inventory. Rather than cutting the bones down, she chipped away at the bones here daily. The alchemist finished the rocks, and got to work on the earth that had been scattered over the bones.

Tresk made a sound and a face, but continued her work on the bones. There were far too many of them for Alex to eat. With plenty of bones to go around, she wouldn’t have to worry about Theo stealing all the bones for alchemy. The system was happy to take three-foot lengths of bones, but seemed more concerned about each bone. Theo joined in the sawing, but was just as slow as Tresk with his relatively low strength.

“Why do you keep making that face?” Theo asked, tossing Tresk another cut bone. “Are you just super excited about cutting up a dead dragon?”

“I mean… look at it,” Tresk said, gesturing to what remained of the skeleton. “This is more bones than Pogo had.”

Theo scratched his chin, looking at the length of the bones they were cutting. Tresk must have paid a good amount for the saws since they were finely made and of Drogramathi Iron. There was slightly too much preparation for a job Tresk would do. The alchemist picked up a length of bone he had cut, inspecting it.

[Quindalias Bone]

[Alchemy Ingredient] [Dragon Ascendant Bone]

A piece of the Dragon Ascendant Quindalias’ skeleton.

Properties:

[????] [????] [????]

“Tresk… are you feeding the bones of a god to our goose?” Theo asked.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Tresk said, going to work on another section.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Theo pinched the bridge of his nose, his mind reeling at the implications. He wasn’t aware of any dragons that had ascended to false godhood. The only dragon he knew by name was Pogo, and she was gone. An ascendant had left something behind before, and it never ended well. Balkor’s corruption had ruined an entire continent, so it was interesting to see a fallen ascendant so close to Broken Tusk. When had it fallen and why?

“Well, she isn’t dead. I guess that’s the good news,” Theo said. “But we don’t know what long-term exposure to this kind of stuff will do.”

“It turns geese into dragons. Duh. Should we take the bones to our world?”

“Absolutely not. That’s going to violate some rule. How could it not? The dragon was likely killed for coming down here without permission. Maybe. I guess it depends on what age it came here.”

“Okay, cool. We can talk about accidentally ending the world later. Help me stuff these bones in the shared inventory.”

Theo and Tresk got back to work on the bones, spending a few hours before and after dawn getting them processed. The skull was too much for them to deal with for now, so they left it. Which was likely not a good idea, but there was nothing more they could do. There was a wedding to attend.

“We can talk about how wrong this is later,” Theo said, mounting Alex. “Is there a Draconic Pantheon?”

“I dunno. I’m just a cute little lizard,” Tresk said, blinking rapidly as she climbed aboard.

Theo could barely think on the way back to Broken Tusk. The sun had risen, casting the town in shades of pale orange. Long shadows stretched across the streets, stabbing westward. The alchemist was certain an ascendant’s bones had been used to start the undead plague. He needed to know more about this dragon to ensure nothing weird would happen. At least most of those bones were now in a dimensional storage container, which should have prevented them from influencing the world.

Even before they landed in town, Theo could see people gathering for the wedding. It would not be a ceremony like he had originally expected, but more like a continuous party with events scattered throughout the day. When they landed, Tresk and Alex scampered off to do goblin stuff—the way they always did—leaving the alchemist behind with his thoughts.

“How was the trip?” Sarisa asked, coming up alongside him.

“Concerning. I need to make a trip to Khahak before the wedding starts. Wanna come?”

“Sure. Why not,” Sarisa said.

“Really?”

“Count me out,” Rowan said, waving them away. “I’ve got things to do.”

Theo shrugged, placing a hand on Sarisa’s shoulder. She yelled as they fell through the veil, finding themselves floating in space. Thanks to the authority of his Dreamwalker’s Core, he could move easily enough through the swirling blackness. He angled them toward Khahar’s orb which orbited the mass in the center just like Tero’gal. A blink later and they were standing atop the Arbiter’s Tower in the center of the world.

“An unexpected visit,” Khahar said, turning from his pristine window to smile at Theo. “What’s up?”

“I just need information on the ancient pantheons,” Theo said. “You know, nothing big.”

“Which one?” Khahar asked.

“The Draconic Pantheon.”

“There was never a true Draconic Pantheon. A few tried, but failed.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“The dragon you left under my town is gone, but I sensed more draconic energy nearby,” Theo said, shaking his head. “You can understand my concern with what happened with Balkor.”

“Ah, yes. I would be concerned, too.” Khahar said, turning away. “Are we allowed to bring mortals here?”

Sarisa vomited on the ground. “I’m good,” she gurgled, giving the thumbs-up.

“I can clean that up,” Theo said. “Also, I dunno. Thanks, Khahar. I need to attend a wedding, but I thought I’d ask.”

“Anytime, Theo.”

Theo placed a hand on Sarisa’s shoulder. “Hold onto your butt.”

Sarisa placed either hand on either cheek and made a low grumbling noise.

An instant later, Theo was standing in Drogramath’s village on Tero’gal. He took a breath of the swamp air and smiled. Sarisa’s face became less pale as she looked around. Something of a smile tugged at her features, but she was still too shaken to produce anything more.

“This looks like home.”

“Yeah, this is where Drogramath settled,” Theo said, waving to a dronon guard. “Where’s the boss?”

The guard gestured in a vague direction, which Theo followed. They had done a lot for the small town since the last time he was here. While he hadn’t figured out how to produce cores for the people here, they had gone off on their own to do all this by hand. The problem of cores in the Throneworld was something he could solve, given time. Tero’gal might figure it out before him, though.

“Old Droggy,” Theo said, placing his hands on his hips as he approached a clearing at the end of the road.

Drogramath stood with a few other dronon, smiling as he turned to wave at Theo. “The master of the house has returned. Are you well?”

“Very well,” Theo said, exchanging his Earth Sorcerer’s Core for his new Shadow core. “I need your amazing memory for something. Sarisa, could you go look for some turtles or something?”

“Oh, I love turtles,” Sarisa said, turning and scampering off.

“Why don’t you show her around?” Drogramath said to those he had gathered. They nodded and ran to join the half-ogre.

“Looks like you’re making a new Broken Tusk,” Theo said, laughing as he expanded his shadowy willpower. They were encased in a field of silence. While he didn’t expect prying eyes in his own world, it was good to be safe. Zaul—Shadow—was too insane for him to worry about. The gods would know about what he was doing because they were gods.

“I’m doing what I can. Which is hard, without alchemy. Why the need for secrecy.”

Theo laughed to himself, shaking his head. “When I first arrived, I saw you as an enemy. I could never have seen you as… this. A mayor of some small swamp town.”

“I am but a dronon.”

“True. The secrecy? I need information on fallen pantheons. Khahar wasn’t in the heavens back in the day. But you were.”

“Which pantheon do you want to know about?”

Theo was tempted to withdraw a bone from his shared inventory, but resisted the urge. That wouldn’t end well. “The Draconic Pantheon.”

Drogramath raised an eyebrow. “You found a fallen dragon.”

Theo snapped his fingers. “I knew you’d know. What can you tell me about them?”

“I can tell you they’re powerful reagents. The dragon ascendants were pure aspects of… something. Fire, earth, water, and so on. We don’t know where they came from, but I know it wasn’t my world or Earth. They were natural to the world, or came from a third world. I cannot say.”

“What would happen—hypothetically—if a goose familiar were to eat about two-hundred pounds of the bones?”

“I don’t know what a pound is, but I’m guessing that’s a lot of weight?”

“About as heavy as the average half-ogre.”

Drogramath laughed, clapping a hand on Theo’s shoulder. “You would get a dragon-goose. Alex should be fine consuming the power of the dragons.They’re representations of pure aspects, uncorrupted like the rest of us.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Because she ate at least four-hundred pounds of bones and is looking more like a dragon by the day. Anything else you can tell me about the dragons?”

“Not much,” Drogramath shrugged. “They were secretive in our day. Even before we ascended. Each found a corner of the world to live in. They went into hiding and we never heard much from them. Those that ascended did so secretly. Only Toru’aun figured out they had truly ascended, and she doesn’t share secrets lightly.”

Theo remembered hearing about dragon ascendants in the past. There was a mix of opinions on them, but he got the impression that people assumed anything could ascend. The underground dungeon was close to ascending before they knocked it down a few levels, so why not? He wouldn’t be surprised if there were intelligent badger ascendants somewhere in the expansive pantheon. Well, before they were nuked.

“Where is Toru’aun, anyway?”

Drogramath laughed again. “Who knows. She’s impossible to pin down.”

“Thanks for the information,” Theo said, reaching out to shake Drogramath’s hand. “I’m proud of the town you’ve built.”

“Thank you, father.”

Theo chuckled, running off to collect Sarisa. This was fun, and moderately insightful, but he had a wedding to attend. He swapped back to his Earth Sorcerer’s Core. “Get off that turtle. We’re heading back.”

“Already?” Sarisa groaned. The dronon around her issued similar groans of disappointment. “We were just about to wrestle.”