Residual (Chapter Forty-Three)
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mindcrackloveA very dragon-y chapter, in which we get to read Iirkolav's papers. There's a considerable break from the feels (disclaimer: Blame is not feeling any better) and we get to see a jerk get shouted at.
Also, this is exactly two thousand words.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Monstrous-Residual-map-526465833
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yvK6D0XzgjhMNjblFFQaAeJ7JkzdidaLJux1S8qsSUA/edit#gid=1227692709
Chapter Forty-Three
Kingdom of Traz’madar, Minecraftia. October 26, year 373. Time instance 483Z.
Vechs knocked on Blame’s door, the papers in his hand. With him stood Zisteau and Aureylian- Aureylian for moral support and Zisteau because some of the diagrams that Iirkolav had drawn reminded the mapmaker of his pigman friend.
He wasn’t surprised when Blame didn’t answer the door, so he carefully opened it.
“Leave me alone.” Blame’s voice was muffled and he was completely hidden under the covers.
“We need to look over the other papers.” Vechs insisted. “Iirkolav wanted us to. It’s important, remember?”
“You do it.”
“Blame-“
“Leave me be.”
Broken and aching.
Vechs sighed softly and shut the door. “I guess we’re on our own when it comes to these.” He shook the pages containing the diagrams and Dranonic runes. “Let’s go find a dragon.”
Zisteau and Aureylian followed him outside, the latter trailing behind as she kept looking over her shoulder in Blame’s direction, clearly worried. They found all three of the dragons resting outside. Aoxdorren lifted her head as they approached.
“Akar, Vechs, Zisteau, kek Aureylian. What is it you needed?”
“We need a translation.” Vechs explained. “I can read these runes, but I don’t know what the words I’m saying mean.”
“Perhaps I could read them.” Aoxdorren squinted at the page, then shook her head. “Not like this, I can’t. I don’t even think I have enough power to transform at the moment, so you’ll have to read it.”
“Transform?”
“Some dragons can take human form.” Aoxdorren informed them, stretching her wings and then folding them. “I am one of those dragons. It’s simply very, very difficult. I don’t believe that either Mokdal or Kalzevrah can- although, I’m willing to bet that Kalzevrah could if she worked at it.”
“Too few heads.” the blue dragon mumbled from several meters away. “I don’t know how I would get along in life with only one head and no wings, even for a short period of time.”
“Focus.” Aureylian reminded them.
“Right.” Vechs flipped through the papers again. “I think I have them in the right order- if there is an order to these things. It’s pretty incomprehensible.”
“That’s because you don’t know Dranonic. Read it to me.”
With difficulty due to Iirkolav’s bizarre handwriting and lack of familiarity with the runes, Vechs read his way through the first paper, Aoxdorren translating after every sentence or so. Vechs frowned and had her translate a few phrases next to the diagrams again as he looked them over, and then suddenly had a burst of understanding.
A portal.
He looked up at Zisteau and asked his question slowly. “Zisteau, do you remember how to make a nether portal?”
Zisteau looked startled. “Yes. Why?”
Vechs looked back down at the paper. “Because we’re going to need one, I think. Iirkolav’s left us instructions on some modifications to a basic nether portal. Why we need one, I don’t know, but I trust Iirkolav.”
“Perhaps we should continue reading.” Kalzevrah suggested. She had lifted her heads to listen to what was going on and had pulled herself closer. Even Mokdal seemed to be listening in, trying to figure out what was going on.
Vechs continued to read, and Aoxdorren continued to translate.
~~~
“Explain that one more time. You want to build a nether portal why?” Guude crossed his arms.
“To trap the Hostiles.” Vechs explained. “Look. Iirkolav made it pretty clear what has to be done.”
“I thought we already decided that we needed to kill the Hostiles for Ishtillion to take them hold.”
“Iirkolav knew something that we didn’t.” Vechs said, shaking his head. “Listen. There’s a place in the nether called the Shattered Zone. It’s essentially where Ishtillion puts people he doesn’t like. Alternatively, it’s called Ishtillion’s Hold. We need to make a nether portal directly to the Shattered Zone and trap the Hostiles within. All Iirkolav was missing was how many Hostiles we could send through at a time and the basics of building a nether portal. He has all the modifications here, but he didn’t know how to make a basic one- but Zisteau does. I’m willing to bet that you can only send ten through at once.”
Guude frowned. “What makes you say that?”
Vechs grinned at him. “Well, I’m not sure exactly. But there are ten left, and the papers also said that, when there are only ten Hostiles left, Specterveil can activate a sort of protection on them making them completely immune to most forms of damage.” His grin faded. “Meaning we need to get them in the nether, and soon. A couple of centuries in there will eat up their protection so that when they break free, our descendants can finish them off. We’ve taken care of more than half of them.”
“How can you be sure that’s the right number?”
“I can’t. But that’s what I would make it be. I’d make it so that the moment they got that protection, they’d be vulnerable to the one thing that could take them out. And they are mine, after all.” Vechs hesitated before continuing. “There’s also…something else.”
Guude groaned. “What is it?”
“We only have until the end of the month to get them in there.”
Guude stared at him. “What.”
“Their presence, especially while protected like this, really damages the flow of time and hurts how reality works. If they’re not taken care of by the end of the month, the disruption will become so great that Iilthrid may awaken. And if he wakes up, there’s only a year left to purge the corruption before he breaks free and pretty much destroys a good chunk of the world.”
“So you’re telling me that we have five days to build a modified nether portal and banish them to the Shattered Zone for two hundred years.”
“Exactly.”
Guude groaned.
A plan not without flaws.
“What other choice do we have?”
“None.” Guude admitted. “What do we need to do?”
“Zisteau’s already underground mining that obsidian pool that Bdubs found.”
Guude shook his head. “You knew you’d convince me.”
“The hard part was not getting my head taken off when I said that we needed to make a nether portal.”
Guude rolled his eyes. “I’ll send some of the others down to help him out. How much do we need?”
Vechs hesitated. “A lot. Zisteau knows how much.”
“Let’s get to it, then.”
~~~
Someone knocked on the door.
“Leave me alone!” Blame shouted. “I’ve told you people over and over to leave me the hell alone!”
“I’m here to help.” Skera opened the door.
“You can’t help.” Blame shuddered under the blankets, still out of sight completely. “No one can…”
“I can try.” Skera sat on the bed and put a hand on the outline of his shoulder. “Please. Let me.”
When Blame didn’t react, she continued to speak.
“The others went through Iirkolav’s notes and found a plan to take down the Hostiles. They’re currently gathering the materials for a modified nether portal to-“
Blame sat up, whipping the blankets off. “They’re what?”
An aversion to anything to do with the nether.
Skera glared at him. “Let me finish. They’re creating a portal directly to the Shattered Zone in the nether. They can lock the Hostiles up there for over two centuries. They’ll destroy the portal the moment that they’re finished with it, don’t worry.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. It’s our only option, and it’s Iirkolav’s plan.”
“Fine.” Blame crossed his arms. “How can I help?”
“By drinking this.” Skera handed him a dark blue potion. He frowned at it.
“What is this?”
“Something to help you sleep. You need to rest. I can’t imagine the Hostiles will go down without a fight, and you’re one of our best fighters.”
Blame sighed, glancing at the two swords leaning against the bed- one gray and one red. “I need to practice dual wielding.” he mumbled. “It’s been ages since I practiced…”
“After you sleep.” Skera assured him. “Okay?”
Blame shook his head. “No. The nightmares…” He shuddered. He knew what kinds of horrors events like this summoned up.
“It’s a dreamless sleep.” Skera looked into his dark eyes. “Please. Iirkolav wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“You don’t know-“
“I’m his mother.” Skera hissed. “I would know. Vechs, Iirkolav, and I are a lot more similar than you would think.”
Blame evaluated everything he saw in her intense blue eyes.
Blame drank the potion.
Fast effects.
Almost immediately, Blame began to feel tired. Skera hopped off his bed and helped him lie down properly, pulling the blanket over him.
“Sleep well.” she whispered as she left the room, but he was already asleep.
~~~
“You did what?!”
Qadran shrank back from the wrath of the elder dragon, immediately knowing that he had messed up.
He had just reached the Dragonlands and had reported what had transpired to the south. He had expected to be welcomed back with cheers about how wise he was to pull back from a situation that he clearly couldn’t survive.
Instead, the elder of his clan, an orange hydra dragon named Spinelash, was furious with him.
“You abandoned your cousin, Kalzevrah, and Aoxdorren in what you knew was a dangerous situation?”
“I tried to convince them to return, but-“
“Then you should have stayed with them and tried to keep them alive, or perhaps gone to retrieve help! Not take a leisurely flight back home expecting to be welcomed and allowed to stay while you knew that you had left three of your clanmates in danger!” One of Spinelash’s heads snapped at Qadran, making his shoulder bleed.
“I…I…”
“You will return to them, and you will help them!” Spinelash roared. “You tell me that Malkorvyss is dead and that the others are still in that same dangerous situation and that you abandoned them? I would lecture you on the meaning of loyalty and how to be a decent dragon, but there are lives in the balance!”
The head that had been shouting reduced itself to growling as another raised its voice further, but this time directed to different dragons waiting outside the cave. “Terok! Nightweave! Gather two other dragons and have Qadran lead you back to your clanmates in Traz’madar. They must be rescued, and if their cause is as just as they say it is- Aoxdorren spoke to me at length about these mortals after she had finished helping them last time- you will help them.”
The two dragons, one black and one green, looked into the cave and bowed their heads. “Qadran! With me!” Nightweave barked. “If I find my daughter injured or dead, you will be held responsible.”
Qadran gulped as he slunk out of the cave and looked up at the larger dragon. Nightweave was easily one of the largest dragons in the clan at about sixty feet long. Her wrath would be terrible. The star patterns on the underside of her wings glinted like judging eyes in the night as she spread them in preparation to take off.
He glanced at Terok, who was about the same age as Mokdal but more heavily built and strong. He was dark green with a solid build and thick scales. He wouldn’t want to get into a fight with him, either.
He had no choice but to follow the two as they fetched two other dragons- Shynkala, a red and gold male dragon, and Aliakraeran, a female with light green and white scales. The five dragons then went south, Qadran leading the way. He didn’t dare divert them from the true course, for fear of Nightweave’s vengeance. Aliakraeran (‘Scalehunter’ in Dranonic) was an excellent tracker and navigator, and she would alert the nightwing dragon if she suspected that Qadran was intentionally taking them along a longer path.
Qadran hoped, for his sake and his sake alone, that Aoxdorren was still alive.
Because if she wasn’t, Nightweave would flay him alive.
Also, this is exactly two thousand words.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Monstrous-Residual-map-526465833
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yvK6D0XzgjhMNjblFFQaAeJ7JkzdidaLJux1S8qsSUA/edit#gid=1227692709
Chapter Forty-Three
Kingdom of Traz’madar, Minecraftia. October 26, year 373. Time instance 483Z.
Vechs knocked on Blame’s door, the papers in his hand. With him stood Zisteau and Aureylian- Aureylian for moral support and Zisteau because some of the diagrams that Iirkolav had drawn reminded the mapmaker of his pigman friend.
He wasn’t surprised when Blame didn’t answer the door, so he carefully opened it.
“Leave me alone.” Blame’s voice was muffled and he was completely hidden under the covers.
“We need to look over the other papers.” Vechs insisted. “Iirkolav wanted us to. It’s important, remember?”
“You do it.”
“Blame-“
“Leave me be.”
Broken and aching.
Vechs sighed softly and shut the door. “I guess we’re on our own when it comes to these.” He shook the pages containing the diagrams and Dranonic runes. “Let’s go find a dragon.”
Zisteau and Aureylian followed him outside, the latter trailing behind as she kept looking over her shoulder in Blame’s direction, clearly worried. They found all three of the dragons resting outside. Aoxdorren lifted her head as they approached.
“Akar, Vechs, Zisteau, kek Aureylian. What is it you needed?”
“We need a translation.” Vechs explained. “I can read these runes, but I don’t know what the words I’m saying mean.”
“Perhaps I could read them.” Aoxdorren squinted at the page, then shook her head. “Not like this, I can’t. I don’t even think I have enough power to transform at the moment, so you’ll have to read it.”
“Transform?”
“Some dragons can take human form.” Aoxdorren informed them, stretching her wings and then folding them. “I am one of those dragons. It’s simply very, very difficult. I don’t believe that either Mokdal or Kalzevrah can- although, I’m willing to bet that Kalzevrah could if she worked at it.”
“Too few heads.” the blue dragon mumbled from several meters away. “I don’t know how I would get along in life with only one head and no wings, even for a short period of time.”
“Focus.” Aureylian reminded them.
“Right.” Vechs flipped through the papers again. “I think I have them in the right order- if there is an order to these things. It’s pretty incomprehensible.”
“That’s because you don’t know Dranonic. Read it to me.”
With difficulty due to Iirkolav’s bizarre handwriting and lack of familiarity with the runes, Vechs read his way through the first paper, Aoxdorren translating after every sentence or so. Vechs frowned and had her translate a few phrases next to the diagrams again as he looked them over, and then suddenly had a burst of understanding.
A portal.
He looked up at Zisteau and asked his question slowly. “Zisteau, do you remember how to make a nether portal?”
Zisteau looked startled. “Yes. Why?”
Vechs looked back down at the paper. “Because we’re going to need one, I think. Iirkolav’s left us instructions on some modifications to a basic nether portal. Why we need one, I don’t know, but I trust Iirkolav.”
“Perhaps we should continue reading.” Kalzevrah suggested. She had lifted her heads to listen to what was going on and had pulled herself closer. Even Mokdal seemed to be listening in, trying to figure out what was going on.
Vechs continued to read, and Aoxdorren continued to translate.
~~~
“Explain that one more time. You want to build a nether portal why?” Guude crossed his arms.
“To trap the Hostiles.” Vechs explained. “Look. Iirkolav made it pretty clear what has to be done.”
“I thought we already decided that we needed to kill the Hostiles for Ishtillion to take them hold.”
“Iirkolav knew something that we didn’t.” Vechs said, shaking his head. “Listen. There’s a place in the nether called the Shattered Zone. It’s essentially where Ishtillion puts people he doesn’t like. Alternatively, it’s called Ishtillion’s Hold. We need to make a nether portal directly to the Shattered Zone and trap the Hostiles within. All Iirkolav was missing was how many Hostiles we could send through at a time and the basics of building a nether portal. He has all the modifications here, but he didn’t know how to make a basic one- but Zisteau does. I’m willing to bet that you can only send ten through at once.”
Guude frowned. “What makes you say that?”
Vechs grinned at him. “Well, I’m not sure exactly. But there are ten left, and the papers also said that, when there are only ten Hostiles left, Specterveil can activate a sort of protection on them making them completely immune to most forms of damage.” His grin faded. “Meaning we need to get them in the nether, and soon. A couple of centuries in there will eat up their protection so that when they break free, our descendants can finish them off. We’ve taken care of more than half of them.”
“How can you be sure that’s the right number?”
“I can’t. But that’s what I would make it be. I’d make it so that the moment they got that protection, they’d be vulnerable to the one thing that could take them out. And they are mine, after all.” Vechs hesitated before continuing. “There’s also…something else.”
Guude groaned. “What is it?”
“We only have until the end of the month to get them in there.”
Guude stared at him. “What.”
“Their presence, especially while protected like this, really damages the flow of time and hurts how reality works. If they’re not taken care of by the end of the month, the disruption will become so great that Iilthrid may awaken. And if he wakes up, there’s only a year left to purge the corruption before he breaks free and pretty much destroys a good chunk of the world.”
“So you’re telling me that we have five days to build a modified nether portal and banish them to the Shattered Zone for two hundred years.”
“Exactly.”
Guude groaned.
A plan not without flaws.
“What other choice do we have?”
“None.” Guude admitted. “What do we need to do?”
“Zisteau’s already underground mining that obsidian pool that Bdubs found.”
Guude shook his head. “You knew you’d convince me.”
“The hard part was not getting my head taken off when I said that we needed to make a nether portal.”
Guude rolled his eyes. “I’ll send some of the others down to help him out. How much do we need?”
Vechs hesitated. “A lot. Zisteau knows how much.”
“Let’s get to it, then.”
~~~
Someone knocked on the door.
“Leave me alone!” Blame shouted. “I’ve told you people over and over to leave me the hell alone!”
“I’m here to help.” Skera opened the door.
“You can’t help.” Blame shuddered under the blankets, still out of sight completely. “No one can…”
“I can try.” Skera sat on the bed and put a hand on the outline of his shoulder. “Please. Let me.”
When Blame didn’t react, she continued to speak.
“The others went through Iirkolav’s notes and found a plan to take down the Hostiles. They’re currently gathering the materials for a modified nether portal to-“
Blame sat up, whipping the blankets off. “They’re what?”
An aversion to anything to do with the nether.
Skera glared at him. “Let me finish. They’re creating a portal directly to the Shattered Zone in the nether. They can lock the Hostiles up there for over two centuries. They’ll destroy the portal the moment that they’re finished with it, don’t worry.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. It’s our only option, and it’s Iirkolav’s plan.”
“Fine.” Blame crossed his arms. “How can I help?”
“By drinking this.” Skera handed him a dark blue potion. He frowned at it.
“What is this?”
“Something to help you sleep. You need to rest. I can’t imagine the Hostiles will go down without a fight, and you’re one of our best fighters.”
Blame sighed, glancing at the two swords leaning against the bed- one gray and one red. “I need to practice dual wielding.” he mumbled. “It’s been ages since I practiced…”
“After you sleep.” Skera assured him. “Okay?”
Blame shook his head. “No. The nightmares…” He shuddered. He knew what kinds of horrors events like this summoned up.
“It’s a dreamless sleep.” Skera looked into his dark eyes. “Please. Iirkolav wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“You don’t know-“
“I’m his mother.” Skera hissed. “I would know. Vechs, Iirkolav, and I are a lot more similar than you would think.”
Blame evaluated everything he saw in her intense blue eyes.
Blame drank the potion.
Fast effects.
Almost immediately, Blame began to feel tired. Skera hopped off his bed and helped him lie down properly, pulling the blanket over him.
“Sleep well.” she whispered as she left the room, but he was already asleep.
~~~
“You did what?!”
Qadran shrank back from the wrath of the elder dragon, immediately knowing that he had messed up.
He had just reached the Dragonlands and had reported what had transpired to the south. He had expected to be welcomed back with cheers about how wise he was to pull back from a situation that he clearly couldn’t survive.
Instead, the elder of his clan, an orange hydra dragon named Spinelash, was furious with him.
“You abandoned your cousin, Kalzevrah, and Aoxdorren in what you knew was a dangerous situation?”
“I tried to convince them to return, but-“
“Then you should have stayed with them and tried to keep them alive, or perhaps gone to retrieve help! Not take a leisurely flight back home expecting to be welcomed and allowed to stay while you knew that you had left three of your clanmates in danger!” One of Spinelash’s heads snapped at Qadran, making his shoulder bleed.
“I…I…”
“You will return to them, and you will help them!” Spinelash roared. “You tell me that Malkorvyss is dead and that the others are still in that same dangerous situation and that you abandoned them? I would lecture you on the meaning of loyalty and how to be a decent dragon, but there are lives in the balance!”
The head that had been shouting reduced itself to growling as another raised its voice further, but this time directed to different dragons waiting outside the cave. “Terok! Nightweave! Gather two other dragons and have Qadran lead you back to your clanmates in Traz’madar. They must be rescued, and if their cause is as just as they say it is- Aoxdorren spoke to me at length about these mortals after she had finished helping them last time- you will help them.”
The two dragons, one black and one green, looked into the cave and bowed their heads. “Qadran! With me!” Nightweave barked. “If I find my daughter injured or dead, you will be held responsible.”
Qadran gulped as he slunk out of the cave and looked up at the larger dragon. Nightweave was easily one of the largest dragons in the clan at about sixty feet long. Her wrath would be terrible. The star patterns on the underside of her wings glinted like judging eyes in the night as she spread them in preparation to take off.
He glanced at Terok, who was about the same age as Mokdal but more heavily built and strong. He was dark green with a solid build and thick scales. He wouldn’t want to get into a fight with him, either.
He had no choice but to follow the two as they fetched two other dragons- Shynkala, a red and gold male dragon, and Aliakraeran, a female with light green and white scales. The five dragons then went south, Qadran leading the way. He didn’t dare divert them from the true course, for fear of Nightweave’s vengeance. Aliakraeran (‘Scalehunter’ in Dranonic) was an excellent tracker and navigator, and she would alert the nightwing dragon if she suspected that Qadran was intentionally taking them along a longer path.
Qadran hoped, for his sake and his sake alone, that Aoxdorren was still alive.
Because if she wasn’t, Nightweave would flay him alive.
