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#31
DHS Comix / Monster of the Week 8
Last post by ProfesseurRenard - May 26, 2026, 01:48:31 AMLord save us from shopkeepers with cloth ears! Good thing the customer was able to get through to him (her? Them?) in the end.
#32
Tower of Art / Re: [Writing] Bleeding Edge (D...
Last post by Chairtastic - May 22, 2026, 05:31:48 PMChapter Sixteen pt. One: Exsanguinate
---
Telmun City, 8533 years before DMFA
Milda Woebetide
The wedding ceremony had been alright. Not too annoying, and auntie Ea got to showcase the family's power to the entire city. Well, the entire city who could afford to attend. People still had to work, roads wouldn't pave themselves after all.
Milda passed number sixteen Marrowbones Place and saw a being family, moles, being shown the property by one of her cousins.
Things had been slightly less homey since Gemenes moved out. No more mooching off him for meals, no more counting on him for last minute fashion advice.
Only after he moved had Milda learned – a good half of the meals he'd made had no meat in them. The wily raccoon had found a way to make vegetables taste like meat! To appease his wife! Milda couldn't even be mad at the deception – he'd fooled her honestly.
She was moments from unlocking her front door to nap before her shift when she heard the deep horns blare. The call for all members of the family to defend the city from an attacker. It hadn't been used since Gyo'Oh first came to the region.
The call for battle, for glory, had come! Milda forgot her tiredness, she forgot her fancy clothes, and hardened her skin in anticipation of fighting. Dilmun, where most of the younger demons lived, came alive with flying alpacas and ferrets. Like a swarm of bats, they took to the air and looked for anyone in the midst of combat before they would depart.
A few demons and half-breeds, not of the families, joined them. Good! Milda gave them encouraging smiles as they joined the group. They would get blood on their claws, and earn rewards for their carnage as was proper.
Some, however, didn't. Milda saw a demon on the ground, among the beings and phoenixes. It was hard to tell his species – bear, otter, or perhaps something else. Red-brown fur with glossy red hair pulled back in a posh style, two impressive horns, and pronounced sideburns. A thick tail – which prompted the otter option, that ended in a spade, and clothes of red and pink. The same colors for his wings.
Milda thought poorly of the fellow before she looked away, and sighed. 'Pity', she thought to herself, 'he's a looker. Kinda looks like a dragon.'
She flew with the flying legion, as she pondered that. Her thoughts churned and ground their gears until they approached the Dilmun-Central tunnel. But by then, it became moot. Ahead of them, through the tunnel to Central, they could see a definite dragon.
Blue-green scales, a black-and-grey speckled pattern throughout like Milda saw on some bird eggs. Wings with an inner lining of the same speckled pattern. No demonic spikes on their head, they had a row of spinal spikes from their arrow-shaped head down to between their shoulders. The dragon stood atop the surface of Central lake and exhaled a blast of smokey white magic that hit the shore then became as fog while it rolled through the streets.
At first, Milda thought nothing of it. She forgot the queer posh otter-bear thing she'd seen in Dilmun. There was a dragon in front of her – and she couldn't wait to see if their hides were truly invulnerable.
But then the fog grew thicker. It reached from the streets, to the roofs of buildings on the bottom layer, and then higher. It brought with it a sharp, unpleasant chemical spell. Something for auntie Ea to sort out.
Per their training, Milda and all the demons around her collected magical energies. Some summoned weapons, others prepared magical attacks. Milda's spell was one Gemenes and Auntie Ea had worked on. Killing magic, they called it – a piercing spell.
A wide array of colorful blasts lashed out at the dragon on the legion's approach. The dragon swept their wing and deflected the spells as if they were projectiles. All except Milda's, a beam of white that gobbled up light within itself to seem dark. It carried on and struck the dragon's wing.
On contact, it created a loud crack noise – similar to stone in the midst of fracture. A bloody hole was left in the sixteen-meter-tall beast, to their shock and Milda's glee.
"It bleeds!" She called out as the bloodlust seeped into her mind and turned everything red. All around her, her kin had the same reaction. Claws were extended, sharp teeth bared. "If it can bleed...."
"It can die!" The legion replied.
--
Siar
She had retired to her aerie to lounge with her lover's avatar for the rest of the day. Seme did not judge her for her wickedness, and would listen to Siar talk about her misery – while Siar did not judge Seme's contemplation, and would listen to Seme as she charted ways out of despair.
Seme had taught Siar that a clan leader couldn't just embody their clan – they had to embody an emotion. They had to have pondered it, mastered it, threaded it through their lives.
It wasn't enough for, say, Owona to embody rage – she had to embody different aspects of rage. She had to root herself in a distinct rage from Taun. Siar would be asked to do the same for her affinity, which would be misery.
Like Seme, Siar charted courses in and out of misery. Sometimes, for whole days, she would reflect on how others experienced misery than herself. She had to talk to her descendants and find the ugly details of their experience.
While the unascended cuddled with despair incarnate, she felt like she knew her descendants as well as she knew herself. Warts, and all. All except Gemenes, because she would not be able to know the vastness of his information until she ascended.
Siar felt Seme smile into her neck. "You're ready, I think. You could drink that potion any day, and make the change." In avatar, Seme could speak to her. To Siar's ears, Seme's voice soothed like lotion.
"Yet still I harbor doubts in mine heart." Siar laid back on the pillows so Seme could rest her avatar's weight atop her. "Mine kin think I will do so, mine clan leader is as certain as the sunrise. You believe in my readiness. The future itself has spoken my success to me. Wherefore does this doubt linger?" She stared at the distant apogee of T'Leylu, the hole through which rain fell.
What if all she had heard about the future was wrong? That having heard what could happen had compromised her? What if she left her descendants in their misery under Owona, because of her failure?
Seme's hand interlaced with Siar's. "That doubt is your mortal mind, trapped in meat. Meat that would lie to you, if it preserved its existence. Become like me, become emotion and magic and might, to silence that doubt."
"My intent is thus." Siar squeezed her lover's hand. "After I have waited the requested time so mine ascent does not despoil my son's wed --"
A shadow moved over the distant point of T'Leylu's apogee. Seconds late, a wave of fear from thousands of people rolled over Siar so sudenly she felt their terror.
She and Seme got up from their pillow pile on the balcony, and as they came to their feet a sudden downward wind hit them. Something pink passed through Siar's peripheral vision followed by an impact tremor.
Seme puffed up her fur and broke her avatar – her physical body's movements in the distance could be heard.
Siar went to the edge of the balcony and looked down.
Stood atop T'Leylu's lake surface was an eighteen meter tall pink wolf succubus, clad in white armor. A slit in the faulds revealed a third set of mauve wings. Skulls with gemstones in their eyes decorated the wolf's armor, or hung from her ears like baubles. Her eyes were like kaleidoscopes, a scintillating pattern that shifted constantly.
Realization hit at the same time that the tri-winged succubus lifted her head to howl. Many lesser howls came down from above as response. The giant snatched a boat from the water's surface and threw it with force at the docks.
"Scorcros," Siar said and looked up. "And her wolves." From on high, many pink points of light started to fall down toward T'Leylu's bottom. She turned from the balcony right as Seme's true body ran passed her, Siar ran in the direction Seme had come from.
Scorcros was ancient, and mighty. Seme was skilled, but had tens of thousands of years less experience. With the sounds of two giants in battle, Siar ran to the chamber where her potion lay. Once she was at speed, she took to the air to fly with greater quickness.
Pink streaks of light landed in the city as she traversed the distance between her balcony's edge and her home. Where they struck, explosions followed along with vivid pink fire that ate at the stone visibly.
Behind her feline snarls and canine growls rattled the very stones.
'Siar.'
Owona's mind reached out to her as Siar ran.
'I'm busy!' Siar thought back.
'I noticed. Ascension is not a process that can be rushed, you will not complete it before Scorcros' wolves find you and interrupt. I will send reinforcements, prepare a beacon.'
Reinforcements? Not often done in a clan of assassins and mercenaries.
Siar stopped, halfway down the hall to her sanctum – where her potion waited in the cauldron. Her entire home rattled with the ferocity of two giants outside. Siar's keen ears picked up on the scrape of metal on stone – Scorcros' wolves had entered her home too.
She wove magic together into a shape of bright lights, with her aura bent toward a call for help. A white-armored pink wolf with a chipped greatsword rounded a corner to her right as the spell was completed.
Before they could even snarl, a green three-eyed cobra head on the end of a wing-tentacle bit them in the midsection and slammed them down into the ground. A bloody crater was all that was left of them.
Siar was suddenly cast in shadow. She looked up, and saw Owona tower over her. In the air around the giant mole, other cubi with glowing eyes like theirs began to appear in colorful bursts.
"Maintain the beacon for five minutes, then rejoin the battle." Owona said and began to shift her form. The mole became like a cloud of green gas, with only her eyes left unchanged. "Strike unseen, O Children Mine."
For the first time in two thousand years of life, Siar saw her clan jump to help each other. Her clan leader slipped away toward the distant battle, and her mortal kin vanished into the shadows. More popped into the hall and vanished without words or a glance. Had Owona anticipated an attack?
Had all the work done to make the city a sanctuary been bait to draw out Scorcros, Owona's old enemy?
Or, even more unlikely, did Owona genuinely want to protect something?
Siar pondered that while she continued her beacon spell.
--
Owona
When Scorcros and Owona first met, she had asked her elder why she was so bloodthirsty if she was hope incarnate. The answer had set the tone for their interactions for thousands of years.
"Hope is an abattoir. For hope's sake, people endure great suffering and live on when death would be kinder. Hope prolongs pain, and gives rise to despair when at last exhausted. We are called not just to embody the aspects of our emotion that we like, little creature."
Scorcros then proceeded to beat Owona very nearly to death, no emotion on her face. It was a task to her, nothing more.
Owona had not been tri-wing at the time. Every time they clashed directly afterward, Scorcros won. But the defeat was less shameful with each occurrence. In their latest bought, when they met in the center of Comia Atoll following Siar's massacre of the mer, the fight had been a draw. Each time, Scorcros seemed excited to do battle with Owona, her repeated victories only made the sentiment greater.
While she slipped through the air as smoke, Owona pondered what that meant for the old wolf's mental state. If she didn't know better – Owona would assume Scorcros wanted a foe who could defeat her.
For the first time, she beheld the T'Leylu geofront with her own eyes as she flew high into the air. It was, naturally, on fire and in the act of being sacked. She never got to see nice places when they weren't on fire, that was not how things were done.
Scorcros, the memory eater, did battle with Seme on the surface of the lake.
Seme was a mage at her heart, she called up the water to lash the wolf with liquid whips that froze seconds before impact.
However, the wolf was armored, so whips of any kind only drove her back. She inhaled and let loose a mighty howl at Seme. The air compressed into discs with the force of Scorcros' voice.
Seme, the top three meters of the lake's surface, and detritus from the shattered aeries were flung into the geofront's ground level. The titanic snow leopard crashed into the Hrienth bank and had to collect herself.
Owona opted to buy her the time to do so.
Smoke became a one-meter pellet of green that fell to the lake with all Owona's mass. She fell right between Scorcros' legs, bent the wolf's water-walking effect with her weight, and bounced right into her enemy's chin.
Crack!
While Scorcros was lifted off her feet and thrown back, Owona unfolded herself and sank below the water. T'Leylu's lake had enough algae that she could blend in without her green giving her away.
"You really, really ought to invest in a helmet," Owona snarked to her elder through her sonorous second voice. It allowed her to sneak about while Scorcros recovered.
Scorcros skidded across the surface of the lake, and worked her jaw once she came to a stop. "And deny you the obvious cheap shot?" The wolf grinned, her kaleidoscope eyes a mix of indigo, red, and yellow. "Good to see you too."
"This is not a friendly interaction, harridan." Owona-as-water flowed with a wave onto the shore, wrapped herself around a broken section of house, then flung it at Scorcros' left knee as it receded. The polenyn was torn off from the force, to expose the mail beneath. "You blaspheme the day my descendant is married, you kill my kin, you threaten a sanctuary to which you were invited!"
"I know! You thought I would fear some angel-worship cult enough to dull my claws, blunt my teeth?" Scorcros stomped her foot and the water on the lake's surface began to boil. "You thought I have need of sanctuary? I like you, so I won't be insulted – but damn can you be hurtful sometimes."
It was a baited hook, a setup for a 'hurt' punchline which Scorcros would counter. Owona paid it no mind, she went beneath the surface of the lake and found a stalagmite in the bed. She condensed herself into her base form and broke it off from the bed, then lined up her shot.
Toss! Followed shortly by impact!
Stone at great speed tore through ornate metal and dug into semi-divine flesh. Scorcros' blood poured from the wound, moreso once she pulled the projectile out.
To do battle while her mind was bombarded with pleas for help, the sensation of dying clan members, and feeds from her kin in combat was not easy. Tri-wings were not meant to be combatants, despite how many earned their titles in battle.
So she didn't begrudge Seme for taking so long to recover. Owona fought, regardless.
She was a tri-wing who had mastered shapeshifting as a form of combat. Owona could control herself to such a degree that her very molecules could move at her will. While Seme recovered, Owona made use of those skills.
Scorcros was stronger than her, had greater reflexes and reach – tens of thousands of years more experience in combat. But Owona had creativity, and the promise of a future Scorcros was stronger than her? Owona became smoke so that Scorcros' limbs passed through her. Scorcros had greater reflexes? Owona used parts of herself to trigger them on command by way of movement in the wolf succubus' peripheral. Scorcros had superior reach? Owona contorted her body as if she were rubber.
It wasn't elegant, it wasn't graceful. Their battle was not some beautiful form of communication. It was messy, like when Scorcros crushed a house to put the dust into Owona's eyes. It was ugly, like when Owona tugged upon the skulls that hung from the wolf's ears.
While they fought, their clans did battle. Owona's struck from shadows, where they either got the kill swiftly or were soon killed themselves. Scorcros' fought for loot, glory, and slaves – as if the battle was a stage performance; their battle prowess only made their display of ego more difficult to stomach.
In the end, Owona succeeded at her task. She kept Scorcros' full and undivided attention long enough for Seme to rejoin the fight.
While the two warriors did battle, Seme had charged a spell of killing. Owona recognized the magic – it was one that Gemenes had developed with the help of the angel Ea Gnashir.
'Zoltraak', was its name.
The spell could break magical defenses, destroy matter, and move with horrifying speed once mastered.
Once Owona recognized it, she quit the field and took to the air out of seeming cowardice.
Grinning Scorcros chased her into T'Leylu's airspace, and only remembered Seme's presence when the spell's telltale sound echoed. Like stone that had fissured. Scorcros looked and saw the attack come as darkness in a cage of white light.
Owona watched a beam two-thirds Scorcros' height strike her, break like a stream of water, and keep going. When it stopped, Scorcros had only her left arm, and had lost a significant portion of her chest, right backwing, and right hipwing.
Blood and magic spilled from her as she toppled into the lake. Owona dived in after her.
The two enemies looked at each other beneath the water. Scorcros had gone limp – her kaleidoscope eyes began to fade into something almost normal. The in-between state resembled stained glass. Scorcros' expression was plaintive.
She didn't want Owona to save her, the mole realized.
Owona didn't want to rescue her either. But she saw in Gemenes' memories, the mighty figure of hope that Scorcros' heir would be.
For the sake of the future, for the sake of their children, Owona swallowed whatever grudge she had against her old enemy, wrapped her up in her wing tentacles, and swam back to the surface.
In an act of seeming bloodthirst, Owona physically slammed Scorcros' mangled body into the shore, and crushed the port authority building under the wolf's weight.
"Why wouldn't you let me die...?" Scorcros asked, her voice broken by the question and her injuries. "You won, at last...."
Owona felt Seme's approach, she felt Seme's flaming anger through her aura. A quick explanation had to be thought up, one both clan leaders would accept.
"You don't get to decide anymore!" Owona pantomimed her rage – a volcanic explosion after much prodding. Her voice echoed through T'Leylu. "You came here, ruined this day for hundreds of people – for your ego! You are everything a clan leader shouldn't be!" She pointed in the wolf's face, her mighty claw jabbed into her nose. "You want to die!? You want out, at long last!? You will pass your power on to the next generation, like you should have done millennia ago!"
Seme's rage abated at Owona's words. The lie had worked, and she believed.
All around them, the fighting had stopped. The wolves had lost heart at their leader's defeat, and the defenders took the chance to fall back to the remaining buildings.
Owona swept her arm wide. "Where in this pack of hounds is Fa'Lina!? Step forward!" She picked Scorcros off the ground and slammed her back into it with force enough to quake the earth.
Silence followed, until rocks began to shift. From out of a ruined shoe store, stepped a poodle succubus with wings of pink-and-white. The one Gemenes had shown her, in his memories. Fa'Lina. To Owona's eyes, she seemed afraid – her hands shook and her steps were stilted.
Owona heaved the defeated and dying Scorcros across the ground so that the wolf could look on her descendant. "Give your power to this one, or I will ask Seme to heal you here and now."
Seme crawled onto the shore, onto Scorcros' opposite side.
The wolf looked at Fa'Lina, then back up to Owona with her lip curled. "You wish me to make a dog my heir?"
Despair incarnate gathered magic in her hands and reached for Scorcros' wounds.
"No, please! Don't save my life! I'll do anything, just don't save my life!"
The future was secured, though there was still more to do; for they hadn't been the only ones attacked.
---
For obvious reasons, you shouldn't expect a Gemenes journal before the next chapter.
---
Telmun City, 8533 years before DMFA
Milda Woebetide
The wedding ceremony had been alright. Not too annoying, and auntie Ea got to showcase the family's power to the entire city. Well, the entire city who could afford to attend. People still had to work, roads wouldn't pave themselves after all.
Milda passed number sixteen Marrowbones Place and saw a being family, moles, being shown the property by one of her cousins.
Things had been slightly less homey since Gemenes moved out. No more mooching off him for meals, no more counting on him for last minute fashion advice.
Only after he moved had Milda learned – a good half of the meals he'd made had no meat in them. The wily raccoon had found a way to make vegetables taste like meat! To appease his wife! Milda couldn't even be mad at the deception – he'd fooled her honestly.
She was moments from unlocking her front door to nap before her shift when she heard the deep horns blare. The call for all members of the family to defend the city from an attacker. It hadn't been used since Gyo'Oh first came to the region.
The call for battle, for glory, had come! Milda forgot her tiredness, she forgot her fancy clothes, and hardened her skin in anticipation of fighting. Dilmun, where most of the younger demons lived, came alive with flying alpacas and ferrets. Like a swarm of bats, they took to the air and looked for anyone in the midst of combat before they would depart.
A few demons and half-breeds, not of the families, joined them. Good! Milda gave them encouraging smiles as they joined the group. They would get blood on their claws, and earn rewards for their carnage as was proper.
Some, however, didn't. Milda saw a demon on the ground, among the beings and phoenixes. It was hard to tell his species – bear, otter, or perhaps something else. Red-brown fur with glossy red hair pulled back in a posh style, two impressive horns, and pronounced sideburns. A thick tail – which prompted the otter option, that ended in a spade, and clothes of red and pink. The same colors for his wings.
Milda thought poorly of the fellow before she looked away, and sighed. 'Pity', she thought to herself, 'he's a looker. Kinda looks like a dragon.'
She flew with the flying legion, as she pondered that. Her thoughts churned and ground their gears until they approached the Dilmun-Central tunnel. But by then, it became moot. Ahead of them, through the tunnel to Central, they could see a definite dragon.
Blue-green scales, a black-and-grey speckled pattern throughout like Milda saw on some bird eggs. Wings with an inner lining of the same speckled pattern. No demonic spikes on their head, they had a row of spinal spikes from their arrow-shaped head down to between their shoulders. The dragon stood atop the surface of Central lake and exhaled a blast of smokey white magic that hit the shore then became as fog while it rolled through the streets.
At first, Milda thought nothing of it. She forgot the queer posh otter-bear thing she'd seen in Dilmun. There was a dragon in front of her – and she couldn't wait to see if their hides were truly invulnerable.
But then the fog grew thicker. It reached from the streets, to the roofs of buildings on the bottom layer, and then higher. It brought with it a sharp, unpleasant chemical spell. Something for auntie Ea to sort out.
Per their training, Milda and all the demons around her collected magical energies. Some summoned weapons, others prepared magical attacks. Milda's spell was one Gemenes and Auntie Ea had worked on. Killing magic, they called it – a piercing spell.
A wide array of colorful blasts lashed out at the dragon on the legion's approach. The dragon swept their wing and deflected the spells as if they were projectiles. All except Milda's, a beam of white that gobbled up light within itself to seem dark. It carried on and struck the dragon's wing.
On contact, it created a loud crack noise – similar to stone in the midst of fracture. A bloody hole was left in the sixteen-meter-tall beast, to their shock and Milda's glee.
"It bleeds!" She called out as the bloodlust seeped into her mind and turned everything red. All around her, her kin had the same reaction. Claws were extended, sharp teeth bared. "If it can bleed...."
"It can die!" The legion replied.
--
Siar
She had retired to her aerie to lounge with her lover's avatar for the rest of the day. Seme did not judge her for her wickedness, and would listen to Siar talk about her misery – while Siar did not judge Seme's contemplation, and would listen to Seme as she charted ways out of despair.
Seme had taught Siar that a clan leader couldn't just embody their clan – they had to embody an emotion. They had to have pondered it, mastered it, threaded it through their lives.
It wasn't enough for, say, Owona to embody rage – she had to embody different aspects of rage. She had to root herself in a distinct rage from Taun. Siar would be asked to do the same for her affinity, which would be misery.
Like Seme, Siar charted courses in and out of misery. Sometimes, for whole days, she would reflect on how others experienced misery than herself. She had to talk to her descendants and find the ugly details of their experience.
While the unascended cuddled with despair incarnate, she felt like she knew her descendants as well as she knew herself. Warts, and all. All except Gemenes, because she would not be able to know the vastness of his information until she ascended.
Siar felt Seme smile into her neck. "You're ready, I think. You could drink that potion any day, and make the change." In avatar, Seme could speak to her. To Siar's ears, Seme's voice soothed like lotion.
"Yet still I harbor doubts in mine heart." Siar laid back on the pillows so Seme could rest her avatar's weight atop her. "Mine kin think I will do so, mine clan leader is as certain as the sunrise. You believe in my readiness. The future itself has spoken my success to me. Wherefore does this doubt linger?" She stared at the distant apogee of T'Leylu, the hole through which rain fell.
What if all she had heard about the future was wrong? That having heard what could happen had compromised her? What if she left her descendants in their misery under Owona, because of her failure?
Seme's hand interlaced with Siar's. "That doubt is your mortal mind, trapped in meat. Meat that would lie to you, if it preserved its existence. Become like me, become emotion and magic and might, to silence that doubt."
"My intent is thus." Siar squeezed her lover's hand. "After I have waited the requested time so mine ascent does not despoil my son's wed --"
A shadow moved over the distant point of T'Leylu's apogee. Seconds late, a wave of fear from thousands of people rolled over Siar so sudenly she felt their terror.
She and Seme got up from their pillow pile on the balcony, and as they came to their feet a sudden downward wind hit them. Something pink passed through Siar's peripheral vision followed by an impact tremor.
Seme puffed up her fur and broke her avatar – her physical body's movements in the distance could be heard.
Siar went to the edge of the balcony and looked down.
Stood atop T'Leylu's lake surface was an eighteen meter tall pink wolf succubus, clad in white armor. A slit in the faulds revealed a third set of mauve wings. Skulls with gemstones in their eyes decorated the wolf's armor, or hung from her ears like baubles. Her eyes were like kaleidoscopes, a scintillating pattern that shifted constantly.
Realization hit at the same time that the tri-winged succubus lifted her head to howl. Many lesser howls came down from above as response. The giant snatched a boat from the water's surface and threw it with force at the docks.
"Scorcros," Siar said and looked up. "And her wolves." From on high, many pink points of light started to fall down toward T'Leylu's bottom. She turned from the balcony right as Seme's true body ran passed her, Siar ran in the direction Seme had come from.
Scorcros was ancient, and mighty. Seme was skilled, but had tens of thousands of years less experience. With the sounds of two giants in battle, Siar ran to the chamber where her potion lay. Once she was at speed, she took to the air to fly with greater quickness.
Pink streaks of light landed in the city as she traversed the distance between her balcony's edge and her home. Where they struck, explosions followed along with vivid pink fire that ate at the stone visibly.
Behind her feline snarls and canine growls rattled the very stones.
'Siar.'
Owona's mind reached out to her as Siar ran.
'I'm busy!' Siar thought back.
'I noticed. Ascension is not a process that can be rushed, you will not complete it before Scorcros' wolves find you and interrupt. I will send reinforcements, prepare a beacon.'
Reinforcements? Not often done in a clan of assassins and mercenaries.
Siar stopped, halfway down the hall to her sanctum – where her potion waited in the cauldron. Her entire home rattled with the ferocity of two giants outside. Siar's keen ears picked up on the scrape of metal on stone – Scorcros' wolves had entered her home too.
She wove magic together into a shape of bright lights, with her aura bent toward a call for help. A white-armored pink wolf with a chipped greatsword rounded a corner to her right as the spell was completed.
Before they could even snarl, a green three-eyed cobra head on the end of a wing-tentacle bit them in the midsection and slammed them down into the ground. A bloody crater was all that was left of them.
Siar was suddenly cast in shadow. She looked up, and saw Owona tower over her. In the air around the giant mole, other cubi with glowing eyes like theirs began to appear in colorful bursts.
"Maintain the beacon for five minutes, then rejoin the battle." Owona said and began to shift her form. The mole became like a cloud of green gas, with only her eyes left unchanged. "Strike unseen, O Children Mine."
For the first time in two thousand years of life, Siar saw her clan jump to help each other. Her clan leader slipped away toward the distant battle, and her mortal kin vanished into the shadows. More popped into the hall and vanished without words or a glance. Had Owona anticipated an attack?
Had all the work done to make the city a sanctuary been bait to draw out Scorcros, Owona's old enemy?
Or, even more unlikely, did Owona genuinely want to protect something?
Siar pondered that while she continued her beacon spell.
--
Owona
When Scorcros and Owona first met, she had asked her elder why she was so bloodthirsty if she was hope incarnate. The answer had set the tone for their interactions for thousands of years.
"Hope is an abattoir. For hope's sake, people endure great suffering and live on when death would be kinder. Hope prolongs pain, and gives rise to despair when at last exhausted. We are called not just to embody the aspects of our emotion that we like, little creature."
Scorcros then proceeded to beat Owona very nearly to death, no emotion on her face. It was a task to her, nothing more.
Owona had not been tri-wing at the time. Every time they clashed directly afterward, Scorcros won. But the defeat was less shameful with each occurrence. In their latest bought, when they met in the center of Comia Atoll following Siar's massacre of the mer, the fight had been a draw. Each time, Scorcros seemed excited to do battle with Owona, her repeated victories only made the sentiment greater.
While she slipped through the air as smoke, Owona pondered what that meant for the old wolf's mental state. If she didn't know better – Owona would assume Scorcros wanted a foe who could defeat her.
For the first time, she beheld the T'Leylu geofront with her own eyes as she flew high into the air. It was, naturally, on fire and in the act of being sacked. She never got to see nice places when they weren't on fire, that was not how things were done.
Scorcros, the memory eater, did battle with Seme on the surface of the lake.
Seme was a mage at her heart, she called up the water to lash the wolf with liquid whips that froze seconds before impact.
However, the wolf was armored, so whips of any kind only drove her back. She inhaled and let loose a mighty howl at Seme. The air compressed into discs with the force of Scorcros' voice.
Seme, the top three meters of the lake's surface, and detritus from the shattered aeries were flung into the geofront's ground level. The titanic snow leopard crashed into the Hrienth bank and had to collect herself.
Owona opted to buy her the time to do so.
Smoke became a one-meter pellet of green that fell to the lake with all Owona's mass. She fell right between Scorcros' legs, bent the wolf's water-walking effect with her weight, and bounced right into her enemy's chin.
Crack!
While Scorcros was lifted off her feet and thrown back, Owona unfolded herself and sank below the water. T'Leylu's lake had enough algae that she could blend in without her green giving her away.
"You really, really ought to invest in a helmet," Owona snarked to her elder through her sonorous second voice. It allowed her to sneak about while Scorcros recovered.
Scorcros skidded across the surface of the lake, and worked her jaw once she came to a stop. "And deny you the obvious cheap shot?" The wolf grinned, her kaleidoscope eyes a mix of indigo, red, and yellow. "Good to see you too."
"This is not a friendly interaction, harridan." Owona-as-water flowed with a wave onto the shore, wrapped herself around a broken section of house, then flung it at Scorcros' left knee as it receded. The polenyn was torn off from the force, to expose the mail beneath. "You blaspheme the day my descendant is married, you kill my kin, you threaten a sanctuary to which you were invited!"
"I know! You thought I would fear some angel-worship cult enough to dull my claws, blunt my teeth?" Scorcros stomped her foot and the water on the lake's surface began to boil. "You thought I have need of sanctuary? I like you, so I won't be insulted – but damn can you be hurtful sometimes."
It was a baited hook, a setup for a 'hurt' punchline which Scorcros would counter. Owona paid it no mind, she went beneath the surface of the lake and found a stalagmite in the bed. She condensed herself into her base form and broke it off from the bed, then lined up her shot.
Toss! Followed shortly by impact!
Stone at great speed tore through ornate metal and dug into semi-divine flesh. Scorcros' blood poured from the wound, moreso once she pulled the projectile out.
To do battle while her mind was bombarded with pleas for help, the sensation of dying clan members, and feeds from her kin in combat was not easy. Tri-wings were not meant to be combatants, despite how many earned their titles in battle.
So she didn't begrudge Seme for taking so long to recover. Owona fought, regardless.
She was a tri-wing who had mastered shapeshifting as a form of combat. Owona could control herself to such a degree that her very molecules could move at her will. While Seme recovered, Owona made use of those skills.
Scorcros was stronger than her, had greater reflexes and reach – tens of thousands of years more experience in combat. But Owona had creativity, and the promise of a future Scorcros was stronger than her? Owona became smoke so that Scorcros' limbs passed through her. Scorcros had greater reflexes? Owona used parts of herself to trigger them on command by way of movement in the wolf succubus' peripheral. Scorcros had superior reach? Owona contorted her body as if she were rubber.
It wasn't elegant, it wasn't graceful. Their battle was not some beautiful form of communication. It was messy, like when Scorcros crushed a house to put the dust into Owona's eyes. It was ugly, like when Owona tugged upon the skulls that hung from the wolf's ears.
While they fought, their clans did battle. Owona's struck from shadows, where they either got the kill swiftly or were soon killed themselves. Scorcros' fought for loot, glory, and slaves – as if the battle was a stage performance; their battle prowess only made their display of ego more difficult to stomach.
In the end, Owona succeeded at her task. She kept Scorcros' full and undivided attention long enough for Seme to rejoin the fight.
While the two warriors did battle, Seme had charged a spell of killing. Owona recognized the magic – it was one that Gemenes had developed with the help of the angel Ea Gnashir.
'Zoltraak', was its name.
The spell could break magical defenses, destroy matter, and move with horrifying speed once mastered.
Once Owona recognized it, she quit the field and took to the air out of seeming cowardice.
Grinning Scorcros chased her into T'Leylu's airspace, and only remembered Seme's presence when the spell's telltale sound echoed. Like stone that had fissured. Scorcros looked and saw the attack come as darkness in a cage of white light.
Owona watched a beam two-thirds Scorcros' height strike her, break like a stream of water, and keep going. When it stopped, Scorcros had only her left arm, and had lost a significant portion of her chest, right backwing, and right hipwing.
Blood and magic spilled from her as she toppled into the lake. Owona dived in after her.
The two enemies looked at each other beneath the water. Scorcros had gone limp – her kaleidoscope eyes began to fade into something almost normal. The in-between state resembled stained glass. Scorcros' expression was plaintive.
She didn't want Owona to save her, the mole realized.
Owona didn't want to rescue her either. But she saw in Gemenes' memories, the mighty figure of hope that Scorcros' heir would be.
For the sake of the future, for the sake of their children, Owona swallowed whatever grudge she had against her old enemy, wrapped her up in her wing tentacles, and swam back to the surface.
In an act of seeming bloodthirst, Owona physically slammed Scorcros' mangled body into the shore, and crushed the port authority building under the wolf's weight.
"Why wouldn't you let me die...?" Scorcros asked, her voice broken by the question and her injuries. "You won, at last...."
Owona felt Seme's approach, she felt Seme's flaming anger through her aura. A quick explanation had to be thought up, one both clan leaders would accept.
"You don't get to decide anymore!" Owona pantomimed her rage – a volcanic explosion after much prodding. Her voice echoed through T'Leylu. "You came here, ruined this day for hundreds of people – for your ego! You are everything a clan leader shouldn't be!" She pointed in the wolf's face, her mighty claw jabbed into her nose. "You want to die!? You want out, at long last!? You will pass your power on to the next generation, like you should have done millennia ago!"
Seme's rage abated at Owona's words. The lie had worked, and she believed.
All around them, the fighting had stopped. The wolves had lost heart at their leader's defeat, and the defenders took the chance to fall back to the remaining buildings.
Owona swept her arm wide. "Where in this pack of hounds is Fa'Lina!? Step forward!" She picked Scorcros off the ground and slammed her back into it with force enough to quake the earth.
Silence followed, until rocks began to shift. From out of a ruined shoe store, stepped a poodle succubus with wings of pink-and-white. The one Gemenes had shown her, in his memories. Fa'Lina. To Owona's eyes, she seemed afraid – her hands shook and her steps were stilted.
Owona heaved the defeated and dying Scorcros across the ground so that the wolf could look on her descendant. "Give your power to this one, or I will ask Seme to heal you here and now."
Seme crawled onto the shore, onto Scorcros' opposite side.
The wolf looked at Fa'Lina, then back up to Owona with her lip curled. "You wish me to make a dog my heir?"
Despair incarnate gathered magic in her hands and reached for Scorcros' wounds.
"No, please! Don't save my life! I'll do anything, just don't save my life!"
The future was secured, though there was still more to do; for they hadn't been the only ones attacked.
---
For obvious reasons, you shouldn't expect a Gemenes journal before the next chapter.
#33
Tower of Art / Re: Pax Draconica 2 - Chapter ...
Last post by Starcat5 - May 20, 2026, 11:26:52 PMPoor Jake. Talk about high stakes "On the Job Training". 
*Cough Cough*
...sorry. Been sick since last week Friday, and I am not yet well enough to laugh like that.
*Cough Cough*
...sorry. Been sick since last week Friday, and I am not yet well enough to laugh like that.
#34
Tower of Art / Pax Draconica 2 - Chapter 30 (...
Last post by Tapewolf - May 20, 2026, 07:34:35 AMChapter 30 - Please to see the King
"Under other circumstances," Terry mused, "I could have a compulsory purchase order drawn up and forcibly acquire Dee from the Hunters in exchange for reasonable compensation. But given that they have illegally annexed part of my realm, I doubt they will be inclined to see reason."
"They murdered me," Lady Silver reminded him. "And in their eyes you will be stealing a secret weapon. They'll shoot you too, even if you visit them in your humanoid guise. If my diplomatic mission to Arstrom results in the death of the ruler I was treating with, I'll be lynched!"
"Doubtful," Terry said. "Every day for the last twenty-five years, I have half expected an assassination attempt by one seeking to continue the cycle of violent usurpations that has plagued Arstrom since at least the time of the Great Burning. You may think I have thrown caution to the wind, walking into danger as I have done on numerous occasions this tenday, but I assure you I have taken sensible precautions and have defences of my own. I may be a dragon, but I am not as stupid as I look when it comes to my safety."
"I think I see," Fardon said. "But since you are being tight-lipped about it, I will not press the matter and keep my guess to myself."
"Appreciated," Terry said. "In any case, we could do a dragon-drop and leave a note for them explaining that Dee is now ours and how they may apply for compensation. And on that note, Dee... Do you wish to return with me to the capital? I shall keep you safe there, as safe as I can. We will likely need to inspect you, I must admit. We will need some idea of how you work in order to keep you healthy."
"I fear that you may simply wish to disassemble me to learn my secrets," Dee admitted. "But I cannot fault your logic. There is, however, the matter of my brothers. I do not want to abandon them!"
"And I swore to protect him," Maarvyn pointed out. "I have this nasty feeling that you have come to relieve me of my prize."
"You do know the most about him," Terry said. "You are welcome to stay at the capital if you wish, especially if it would put Dee at ease."
"Um," Jake started. Terry craned his neck to look at the plane-dragon.
"Uh, your lordship," Jake said, "I have just been radioed by my superiors. They would like to arrange a meeting."
"Okay," Terry said. "Clearly I will not be returning to the capital quite yet. Maarvyn, if you can take Dee to Hadrovar, I am sure Zarnak can find a place to hide him. And I can send Fardon or Mermul to ensure you are given a proper welcome and not shot down on sight as the Scourge of the North." Maarvyn looked away, embarrassed.
"That might not be necessary, your lordship," Jake said. "They are, uh... scared of you, your lordship. They were hoping you could send an envoy to negotiate on your behalf...? Sir Fardon, for example?"
"Impudence!" Terry growled. "You refuse to treat with me directly?!"
"Your lordship, you aren't exactly calming their envoy," Fardon interrupted as the plane-dragon cowered miserably. "Jake is only young, has seemingly lived a sheltered life, and has never done this before. If you keep threatening him, you can hardly be surprised when his allies think you are too dangerous to handle in person. After all, everything they know is filtered through him, and coloured by his experiences."
"That is true," Terry said, staring at the ground with embarrassment. "And I apologise, I have not been treating you with the respect you deserve, Jake. But be that as at may, Sir Fardon is not mine to command! He is Taria's envoy, not Arstrom's!"
"If it helps make things safer for dragonkind, I will do it anyway," Fardon offered. "The initial contact, at least. But I hope that if they can be convinced you are not planning to exterminate or declare open war upon them, they could be persuaded to meet you in person, or through an actual member of your staff.
"But the question is, if I go there, should Mermul come with, or stay with you and Maarvyn? He has rare powers of healing and I don't know which is going to be more risky."
"I'll go," Fiskul said. "I was to be your backup in case Lord Terror turned out to be a monster like Lord Thurr. I can still be your backup if Jake's lot try something stupid."
As usual, the Devourer of the World hung back, ready to use force if Fardon did not return within an agreed timescale, or if things were clearly going wrong.
Fardon followed Jake to a cliff with a blind face that opened up to reveal a hidden passage. Inside, lit by floodlights, was a landing area. Fardon could see at least two other plane-dragons, one of whom was apparently having her mechanisms serviced.
"Welcome back, Jake!" a dragon said, greeting them. "And you... Sir Fardon, is it...? Come, I shall take you to our King!"
"Thank you," Fardon said.
Not long after, he was standing in a wide hall excavated into the rock. Several other dragons, wholly organic or partially cybernetic like Jake, stood nearby, but in the centre, sitting on a large chair, was a figure who was obviously their leader.
Fardon gasped. The dragon standing before him was unlike anything he had ever seen... He was diminutive compared to Fardon himself, but colossal for one of the Small Races, standing a full twelve feet high, twice the size of Lord Terror in his furre guise.
Like Lord Terror, he was bipedal in stance, his wings, legs and arms were clearly partly-mechanical and his muscular torso would have looked devastating to Fardon if he had been a furre himself. Even as a dragon with a different standard of beauty to a human or furre, he could see what the other had been aiming at, just as Lord Terror had done in his anthropomorphic guise.
The dragon-man's head was covered in dark fur, with long, peach-coloured hair covering his head, and two yellow-tinged horns. Privately, Fardon estimated that he could still bite the creature's head off if the need arose.
King grinned toothily at Sir Fardon. "Welcome," he said simply, making a friendly gesture.
"You are the King here?" Fardon asked cautiously. "Lord Terror isn't as vicious as Jake may have led you to believe, but having competition isn't going to improve his mood, you know."
"Ah, this often happens," the anthro dragon smiled amiably. "'King' is my name. Sometimes that confuses people, but at the same time I don't really want to change it. And yes, I am the one in charge here."
"King King, then?"
"I guess so," the cyborg dragon replied. "Though as you say, Lord Terror isn't going to like it if he thinks I'm trying to muscle in on his territory."
"That is the impression you have given him, by carving a chunk off the edge of his realm," Fardon cautioned. "Some would see that as a weakness, and that is something he will not tolerate. You have put him in an awkward position, and he's also extremely pissed off about the egg business," the brown dragon scowled.
"That was... admittedly a bad look," King said sombrely. "And we have stopped such actions for the time being. Maybe, if an accord can be forged with Lord Terror, we can do things in a formal manner rather than clandestinely as we have until now."
"Jake seems to think that you believed this was a kindness," Fardon said. "I am not a father myself, but if I was, I would be beside myself with grief were someone to steal my child. Surely you can see this?"
"It was a kindness," King insisted. "You have seen the power of my cybernetics technology," he added, gesturing at Jake with a robotic arm. "I can give an injured dragon new limbs. Turn a drake or a wyvern into a true dragon. Through this technology, I can make the weak and helpless stronger and faster than any dragon alive!"
"Technology which you have been testing on yourself, I take it?" Fardon remarked, craning his neck to look at the arm more closely.
"Of course," King said. "Once, I was a dwarf-dragon. Large for my size, but still smaller than most others of my kind. Weaker. Bullied by larger dragons, and helpless against the Hunters. But just as humans became great through their machines, I followed that same path!
"I got interested in building armour first, to help keep us safe. You are a knight, are you not, Sir Fardon? You may have worn the ceramics I helped develop! But as technology improved, I moved to robotics! After the accident, I designed a replacement leg for myself..."
"...and you kept going...?"
"Exactly!" King beamed. "Now I am stronger and more powerful than I ever was as a pure flesh-and-blood creature! I am only twice the size of a human, but my hands could crush their skulls! And I want to help others reach that same greatness! Don't you understand? It's a gift! With my enhancements, they will not be fodder for the Hunters to kill! Now, they can finally defend themselves, and do it with dragon technology that does not depend on the caprices of the Small Races!"
"...You are a dragon supremacist?" Fardon looked furious.
"No, no, no!" King looked horrified. "Crushing human skulls should be an action of last resort! The alliance with the Small Ones has been a boon indeed. But I worry about how much we depend upon their good grace. If, gods forbid, they decided to tear up the Pax Draconica, we'd be helpless without their technology. I just want to make sure that we can continue to survive, should the worst happen and the humans cut us off!"
"A backup plan," Fardon said. "I can see where you're coming from. But it could also become a weapon to enable the likes of Lord Thurr. Yes, he has calmed down, but others have not. The Red Queen of Gracia is still a murderous psycho, is she not? Do you really want her to be able to attack human and furre settlements with impunity?"
King looked upset. "But it's a gift!" He protested. "All dragons seek to become stronger and more powerful!"
"But wouldn't we become less dragon? Father Alkrash made us in His image, or so the sacred texts say! Do we have the right to cut off the limbs He gave us and replace them with metal?"
"But we have always sought to improve ourselves!" King protested. "We can't carry much while walking, so we built satchels and neck-bags! If we lose our back legs, we make carts to ride in! Elevators for the wingless! I'm just taking it a few steps further!"
"You should still have asked permission!" Fardon shook his head, unconsciously using the tone of a disappointed parent. "Lord Terror would likely have allowed you to experiment on those who were severely injured or otherwise desperate to improve their quality of life. But you have jeopardised all that by antagonising him!"
"You seem very trusting of him," King countered, looking at Fardon intently. "But is that trust really justified...? What if he has been stringing you along...?"
"Lord Terror requested an envoy from Lord Varl of Taria to discuss trade," Fardon pointed out. "I am that envoy, and I have not seen any evidence of duplicity on his behalf whatsoever, and I assure you I have been watching for it. Taria will not be made fools of, and he knows this. It just happens that his project to open Arstrom up to dragonkind is very much aligned with our own interests."
"But did you ever question his reason for doing that...?" King rose from his seat and stood eye-level with Fardon. "Yes, this so-called 'Lord Terror' is allowing dragons back into Arstrom, but why? Why would any furre want to do that...? So he can sell their bones! He invites us to his dragon-porches, but what better way to eliminate us all, one by one? Surely you can see the trap he is setting!"
"He's not a furre," Fardon said quietly.
"I beg your pardon...?"
"It's true," Jake put in. "I have met him. He is one of Us."
"You never told us that!" the dragon-man yelped.
"I must have forgotten!" Jake wailed. "I was sure I had!"
"Well, shit," King said, palming his snout.
"Under other circumstances," Terry mused, "I could have a compulsory purchase order drawn up and forcibly acquire Dee from the Hunters in exchange for reasonable compensation. But given that they have illegally annexed part of my realm, I doubt they will be inclined to see reason."
"They murdered me," Lady Silver reminded him. "And in their eyes you will be stealing a secret weapon. They'll shoot you too, even if you visit them in your humanoid guise. If my diplomatic mission to Arstrom results in the death of the ruler I was treating with, I'll be lynched!"
"Doubtful," Terry said. "Every day for the last twenty-five years, I have half expected an assassination attempt by one seeking to continue the cycle of violent usurpations that has plagued Arstrom since at least the time of the Great Burning. You may think I have thrown caution to the wind, walking into danger as I have done on numerous occasions this tenday, but I assure you I have taken sensible precautions and have defences of my own. I may be a dragon, but I am not as stupid as I look when it comes to my safety."
"I think I see," Fardon said. "But since you are being tight-lipped about it, I will not press the matter and keep my guess to myself."
"Appreciated," Terry said. "In any case, we could do a dragon-drop and leave a note for them explaining that Dee is now ours and how they may apply for compensation. And on that note, Dee... Do you wish to return with me to the capital? I shall keep you safe there, as safe as I can. We will likely need to inspect you, I must admit. We will need some idea of how you work in order to keep you healthy."
"I fear that you may simply wish to disassemble me to learn my secrets," Dee admitted. "But I cannot fault your logic. There is, however, the matter of my brothers. I do not want to abandon them!"
"And I swore to protect him," Maarvyn pointed out. "I have this nasty feeling that you have come to relieve me of my prize."
"You do know the most about him," Terry said. "You are welcome to stay at the capital if you wish, especially if it would put Dee at ease."
"Um," Jake started. Terry craned his neck to look at the plane-dragon.
"Uh, your lordship," Jake said, "I have just been radioed by my superiors. They would like to arrange a meeting."
"Okay," Terry said. "Clearly I will not be returning to the capital quite yet. Maarvyn, if you can take Dee to Hadrovar, I am sure Zarnak can find a place to hide him. And I can send Fardon or Mermul to ensure you are given a proper welcome and not shot down on sight as the Scourge of the North." Maarvyn looked away, embarrassed.
"That might not be necessary, your lordship," Jake said. "They are, uh... scared of you, your lordship. They were hoping you could send an envoy to negotiate on your behalf...? Sir Fardon, for example?"
"Impudence!" Terry growled. "You refuse to treat with me directly?!"
"Your lordship, you aren't exactly calming their envoy," Fardon interrupted as the plane-dragon cowered miserably. "Jake is only young, has seemingly lived a sheltered life, and has never done this before. If you keep threatening him, you can hardly be surprised when his allies think you are too dangerous to handle in person. After all, everything they know is filtered through him, and coloured by his experiences."
"That is true," Terry said, staring at the ground with embarrassment. "And I apologise, I have not been treating you with the respect you deserve, Jake. But be that as at may, Sir Fardon is not mine to command! He is Taria's envoy, not Arstrom's!"
"If it helps make things safer for dragonkind, I will do it anyway," Fardon offered. "The initial contact, at least. But I hope that if they can be convinced you are not planning to exterminate or declare open war upon them, they could be persuaded to meet you in person, or through an actual member of your staff.
"But the question is, if I go there, should Mermul come with, or stay with you and Maarvyn? He has rare powers of healing and I don't know which is going to be more risky."
"I'll go," Fiskul said. "I was to be your backup in case Lord Terror turned out to be a monster like Lord Thurr. I can still be your backup if Jake's lot try something stupid."
* * *
As usual, the Devourer of the World hung back, ready to use force if Fardon did not return within an agreed timescale, or if things were clearly going wrong.
Fardon followed Jake to a cliff with a blind face that opened up to reveal a hidden passage. Inside, lit by floodlights, was a landing area. Fardon could see at least two other plane-dragons, one of whom was apparently having her mechanisms serviced.
"Welcome back, Jake!" a dragon said, greeting them. "And you... Sir Fardon, is it...? Come, I shall take you to our King!"
"Thank you," Fardon said.
Not long after, he was standing in a wide hall excavated into the rock. Several other dragons, wholly organic or partially cybernetic like Jake, stood nearby, but in the centre, sitting on a large chair, was a figure who was obviously their leader.
Fardon gasped. The dragon standing before him was unlike anything he had ever seen... He was diminutive compared to Fardon himself, but colossal for one of the Small Races, standing a full twelve feet high, twice the size of Lord Terror in his furre guise.
Like Lord Terror, he was bipedal in stance, his wings, legs and arms were clearly partly-mechanical and his muscular torso would have looked devastating to Fardon if he had been a furre himself. Even as a dragon with a different standard of beauty to a human or furre, he could see what the other had been aiming at, just as Lord Terror had done in his anthropomorphic guise.
The dragon-man's head was covered in dark fur, with long, peach-coloured hair covering his head, and two yellow-tinged horns. Privately, Fardon estimated that he could still bite the creature's head off if the need arose.
King grinned toothily at Sir Fardon. "Welcome," he said simply, making a friendly gesture.
"You are the King here?" Fardon asked cautiously. "Lord Terror isn't as vicious as Jake may have led you to believe, but having competition isn't going to improve his mood, you know."
"Ah, this often happens," the anthro dragon smiled amiably. "'King' is my name. Sometimes that confuses people, but at the same time I don't really want to change it. And yes, I am the one in charge here."
"King King, then?"
"I guess so," the cyborg dragon replied. "Though as you say, Lord Terror isn't going to like it if he thinks I'm trying to muscle in on his territory."
"That is the impression you have given him, by carving a chunk off the edge of his realm," Fardon cautioned. "Some would see that as a weakness, and that is something he will not tolerate. You have put him in an awkward position, and he's also extremely pissed off about the egg business," the brown dragon scowled.
"That was... admittedly a bad look," King said sombrely. "And we have stopped such actions for the time being. Maybe, if an accord can be forged with Lord Terror, we can do things in a formal manner rather than clandestinely as we have until now."
"Jake seems to think that you believed this was a kindness," Fardon said. "I am not a father myself, but if I was, I would be beside myself with grief were someone to steal my child. Surely you can see this?"
"It was a kindness," King insisted. "You have seen the power of my cybernetics technology," he added, gesturing at Jake with a robotic arm. "I can give an injured dragon new limbs. Turn a drake or a wyvern into a true dragon. Through this technology, I can make the weak and helpless stronger and faster than any dragon alive!"
"Technology which you have been testing on yourself, I take it?" Fardon remarked, craning his neck to look at the arm more closely.
"Of course," King said. "Once, I was a dwarf-dragon. Large for my size, but still smaller than most others of my kind. Weaker. Bullied by larger dragons, and helpless against the Hunters. But just as humans became great through their machines, I followed that same path!
"I got interested in building armour first, to help keep us safe. You are a knight, are you not, Sir Fardon? You may have worn the ceramics I helped develop! But as technology improved, I moved to robotics! After the accident, I designed a replacement leg for myself..."
"...and you kept going...?"
"Exactly!" King beamed. "Now I am stronger and more powerful than I ever was as a pure flesh-and-blood creature! I am only twice the size of a human, but my hands could crush their skulls! And I want to help others reach that same greatness! Don't you understand? It's a gift! With my enhancements, they will not be fodder for the Hunters to kill! Now, they can finally defend themselves, and do it with dragon technology that does not depend on the caprices of the Small Races!"
"...You are a dragon supremacist?" Fardon looked furious.
"No, no, no!" King looked horrified. "Crushing human skulls should be an action of last resort! The alliance with the Small Ones has been a boon indeed. But I worry about how much we depend upon their good grace. If, gods forbid, they decided to tear up the Pax Draconica, we'd be helpless without their technology. I just want to make sure that we can continue to survive, should the worst happen and the humans cut us off!"
"A backup plan," Fardon said. "I can see where you're coming from. But it could also become a weapon to enable the likes of Lord Thurr. Yes, he has calmed down, but others have not. The Red Queen of Gracia is still a murderous psycho, is she not? Do you really want her to be able to attack human and furre settlements with impunity?"
King looked upset. "But it's a gift!" He protested. "All dragons seek to become stronger and more powerful!"
"But wouldn't we become less dragon? Father Alkrash made us in His image, or so the sacred texts say! Do we have the right to cut off the limbs He gave us and replace them with metal?"
"But we have always sought to improve ourselves!" King protested. "We can't carry much while walking, so we built satchels and neck-bags! If we lose our back legs, we make carts to ride in! Elevators for the wingless! I'm just taking it a few steps further!"
"You should still have asked permission!" Fardon shook his head, unconsciously using the tone of a disappointed parent. "Lord Terror would likely have allowed you to experiment on those who were severely injured or otherwise desperate to improve their quality of life. But you have jeopardised all that by antagonising him!"
"You seem very trusting of him," King countered, looking at Fardon intently. "But is that trust really justified...? What if he has been stringing you along...?"
"Lord Terror requested an envoy from Lord Varl of Taria to discuss trade," Fardon pointed out. "I am that envoy, and I have not seen any evidence of duplicity on his behalf whatsoever, and I assure you I have been watching for it. Taria will not be made fools of, and he knows this. It just happens that his project to open Arstrom up to dragonkind is very much aligned with our own interests."
"But did you ever question his reason for doing that...?" King rose from his seat and stood eye-level with Fardon. "Yes, this so-called 'Lord Terror' is allowing dragons back into Arstrom, but why? Why would any furre want to do that...? So he can sell their bones! He invites us to his dragon-porches, but what better way to eliminate us all, one by one? Surely you can see the trap he is setting!"
"He's not a furre," Fardon said quietly.
"I beg your pardon...?"
"It's true," Jake put in. "I have met him. He is one of Us."
"You never told us that!" the dragon-man yelped.
"I must have forgotten!" Jake wailed. "I was sure I had!"
"Well, shit," King said, palming his snout.
#35
Jayhawk HQ / Re: [Pax Draconica Chapter 3]
Last post by Tapewolf - May 20, 2026, 05:23:05 AMQuote from: ProfesseurRenard on May 19, 2026, 08:47:18 PM03-08 - Dragons tend to crash out after eating
Synthetic meat, eh? I'm a little curious how the process for that works (some sort of cloning vat or the suchlike?)...
More like Quorn or soy protein. Quorn was available for evaluation by 1985, as a result of a fear in the late 60s that the population needed new ways to be fed, so they experimented with micro-fungus as a protein and had it working by the mid-80s though they didn't get a license to sell it until the early 90s.
In their timeline they've had additional pressure to develop such things since dragons need a lot of food, and while they're omnivorous they still want to avoid having them get desperate enough to eat humanoids. So I would imagine they had vat-grown plant, algae, microfungus stuff available far earlier than we did.
In the social media posts I specifically referred to them as "vege-steaks" but that probably didn't come across on the main site.
#36
The Thulda Market / Re: 09/8/2014 [FFC#13] What th...
Last post by Loualinson - May 20, 2026, 02:15:48 AMWow, a flash-bang-gas combo sounds intense! I agree, it's definitely more than just smoke. Solar Smash
#37
Jayhawk HQ / Re: [Pax Draconica Chapter 3]
Last post by ProfesseurRenard - May 19, 2026, 08:47:18 PM03-08 - Dragons tend to crash out after eating
Synthetic meat, eh? I'm a little curious how the process for that works (some sort of cloning vat or the suchlike?)...
Synthetic meat, eh? I'm a little curious how the process for that works (some sort of cloning vat or the suchlike?)...
#38
The Thulda Market / Re: Here's what's going on.
Last post by Loualinson - May 19, 2026, 04:18:45 AMWow, that sounds incredibly stressful. Prioritizing your health and well-being is absolutely the right call. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty about that!
Slope Game
Slope Game
#39
The Outer Fortress / Re: Wedding update
Last post by Merlin - May 18, 2026, 11:33:09 PMTHAT LOOKS SO AMAZING!!!!
#40
Tower of Art / Re: [Writing] Bleeding Edge (D...
Last post by Merlin - May 18, 2026, 11:32:35 PMyessssss