[Hlaeth] Ch 5 - Of Dragons and Things

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            The pegasi swept in with speed and energy, confident in their maneuverability and agility. Feature ignored them, gliding along on the course I’d given him as if they weren’t there.

            Seeing our cool composure, and how I and Captain Fyanyl were standing so easily on the back of the dragon, gave off a bit of an impression. The ease with which Feature glided along so levelly was also irksomely superior to the pegasus he was riding, who was trying to emulate it and failing.

            My Disk Load peeled out of my restored Masspack, wound up into its Disk form, and then a force screen flicked into being all around it in a ten-foot radius.

            It also happened to be conveniently in front of and underneath the course of the pegasus the vanguard captain was riding.

            The pegasus snorted, and almost turned up its nose at the idea of landing in the air when I turned around and looked at him. “I am being polite. Are you going to be rude in return?”

            No glasses, no cloth, just empty pits where my eyes should have been, tiny, hard silver sparks jumping off the severed optic nerves.

            The pegasi huffed and quickly landed on the proffered landing platform there in midair. It took his weight effortlessly, given that it could hold about sixty tons without any strain.

            “A human and a dragon-rider, inside our territory.” Given I’d spoken in Elven, he was doing the same. “Identify yourself, outlander,” the mithral-armored elven lord demanded of me, conveniently able to look down at us from the side, as Load was floating above and to my left.

            “Aelryinth of Heaven, Magos,” I replied succinctly, continuing my unleashing of Vivic Walls of Heaven’s Fire across the landscape of chopped and fallen forest elders. Every single tree there was at least five hundred years old, and most of them far beyond them. It was an old, primeval forest, full of old magic and ancient things, likely not kind to the young and those things new to the world.

            Just the kind of place elves with martial leanings would still love, however.

            “I am Captain Namaril of the Royal Stormguard. Why is a Captain of the Borderguard riding with you?” he inquired neutrally, turning his attention to her.

            “I am Captain Fyanyl,” she replied slowly, her poise indicating that she wanted to snap back at his tone, but was restraining herself. “The human invited me to ride along him and direct him on what not to burn. He… has the permission of Grandmother Dancing Moon to clear the forest and set it aflame to avoid what is coming.”

            “Dancing Moon? The eldest of the Weirwoods?” Captain Namaril to look towards the horizon, and the great trees still standing there.

            “Six of her children fell to the magic which happened here. The destruction is as you see it. The mighty of the Parliament in this air endured it, but some of their children did not.

            “It occurred to the human that we might not want the children of the Elder Trees burned away too readily.”

            Captain Namaril’s purple eyes widened as they considered that, and looked at me, and the fires of Heaven I was tracing across the grounds below. He was no priest, but he knew sacred flames when he saw them. “What is your purpose here, then, human? Why are you aiding me?” he demanded of me.

            “I am a guest, and my host asked me to render aid after the fact.” I waved absently in the direction of the great weirwood back there. “Of more import to you and those following you is what I prevented happening here.” I turned and pointed to the beginning focus point of the cone of destruction here. “There was an attempt at erecting a transdimensional Gate of considerable size at the nexus of the Dimensional Fracture that was unleashed here. I believe I blew it apart and disrupted it back into its source, but that is no reason not to be on your guard against a second attempt.

            “I confess to being slightly surprised by the lack of alarm or forewarning, given that many elven nations are reputed to be adept at divinatory magic. Is there a reason you did not see the attack coming, Captain?”

            That caught him wrong-footed. I was expecting them to be more magically adept than they were proving themselves.

            “I… have received no warning of such an event happening. How would such an attack have managed to pierce the Veil? It has been sealed for over five hundred years!” he demanded of me.

            That got my attention, although it didn’t stop my Fire-letting. I turned my head slightly. “I am not from this world,” I reported coldly, and his sapphire eyes widened in astonishment at the claim. “You’ll have to forgive me, but the circumstances of my being blasted into your world haven’t allowed me to undertake a detailed examination of the pan-dimensional protective layers of your homeworld here as yet.”

            “An off-worlder?” the elven captain repeated uneasily. “Such things have not been seen for centuries, Magos Aelryinth…”

            “Why? Your magical proficiency seems more than developed enough to have experienced planeswalkers of one sort or another,” I continued in a scholarly tone.

            “The Veil, the barrier that separates our world from others, has been strengthened to a massive degree. Leaving Hlaeth through dimensional magic is as impossible as it is to call or summon things in from outside it. Even words and magic from the gods has been severely curtailed.”

            “Obviously, enough force can pierce it from the outside, but they would have to know you are here and have a powerful motivation to come here.” I looked in the direction of the nexus point. “I know the magic was orcish in flavor, I’ve felt and seen such enough to recognize it. I also felt the Blood Magic of massive sacrifices made to empower it to near-divine levels of power.

            “Somewhere beyond the Veil, you’ve got an enemy who wanted to come here. They knew where to go and what it took to get through the Veil, and they probably knew exactly the land they were targeting, given the Dimensional Fracture designed to butcher any assembled forces meant to forestall them and meet them at the point of egress.

            “Now, I’m not impolite enough to presume how you handle things, but if you’ve a number of senior mages, I’m thinking they might want to at the very least get some very good readings on the magic that was used to do this.” I pointed ahead of us. “The vivus sweeping through will eliminate any traces of the magic, so the next attempt will surprise you as much as this one did if you can’t at least sense their anchors. If you can catch them in the anchoring process, you should be able to sever their locks, and if done well, feed back their own magic and punish them for trying this.”

            “I… that is a worthy thought, Magos Aelryinth. Allow me to contact my superiors…”

            And also delay matters until the following unit of dragons and griffons could catch up, while also taking credit for getting the alarm out early. I said nothing, keeping at my task, while the pegasi around, now more flying escort than anything else, waited for their compatriots to arrive, which would only take a minute or so.

----

            They were definitely coming in to impress me, staying high so they could dive down with power and shiny pointy lances to impale, plainly threatening Feature and myself and suspecting all sorts of foul play or something… especially when I completely ignored them and continued lighting Walls of Heavenly Fire across the landscape below.

            Then one of them did the math on just how long those Walls were, how many of them I’d left behind me, and they checked themselves from descending any closer.

            I’m sure the way Feature wasn’t flapping his wings for anything more than gentle direction changes was also unnerving them, and he definitely wasn’t impressed by any of the dragons.

            They weren’t small dragons, either, but I had not seen dragons that had souls of Silver before, either, so we were all seeing something new today.

            They could sense the aura of a Dragon-Slayer on me, the glaus nûrg mönt, the White Death King. If I pulled out my Cloak and put it on, they wouldn’t be wanting to get anywhere close to me.

            Two Silvers, a Gold, and a Bronze. Based on what I’d learned from talking with Celestials about dragons, that might mean Valor, Lore, and Shield Dragons, but this was a completely different multiverse, so who knew how it all translated over.

            Regardless, the dragons were all at least Very Old, of a size with Feature or larger. They were absolutely wary, never having a seen a Dragon that looked anything like my serpentine Familiar, and given they were in the classic winged-lizard style of the West, that wasn’t too surprising. Clearly a foreign species of one kind or another, unique color scheme…

            And riding it was a human spellcaster letting out unlimited Walls of clearly Heavenly flames, at level 100.

            No, they didn’t want to mess with me at all. They were probably suspecting they were dealing with a god or something.

            I watched as they took up a formation around me, which could be seen as surrounding me or escorting me, depending on how you cared to see things.

            This elf had golden plate armor on him when he popped up next to Captain Namaril on my Disk. He glanced down at the surface he was standing on, and turned to survey the area coolly once.

            Golden skin, almost six feet tall, emerald eyes, black hair, inhumanly handsome in that androgynous way, longsword at his side replete with diamonds inset in it, a full +Akt Weapon… which still didn’t impress me overmuch.

            “Captain Fyanyl, if you would join us?” he said in a sternly commanding voice.

            She frowned for just a moment, but before she could inquire as to how to do that, Magnus politely lifted her up with Telekinesis in a graceful arc that looked very much like an effortless leap, and deposited her right next to him.

            She kept her face totally composed during the whole process, too. She could feel the magic dipping through her from the Sublime Chord that was ringing around them, and knew I had done it, carefully emulating a plausible Jump spell or lightfoot or something for her benefit.

            “Commander Tellusion,” she greeted him coolly, wary respect if not friendliness in her voice. “How may I be of assistance?”

            “Report to me what you know, Captain,” the elven commander of the Royal Vanguard ordered, and she immediately began to do so.

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