Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Book 4: Chapter 14: A Dragon Never Forgets

Chapter 14

The Hydra’s breath washed over him in a blink, it felt as though the purple aetheric energy passed over his form and then through it, like he had stepped across the plane of a gentle waterfall. As the water passed over his back, he felt a flash of searing heat from his spine, the spots where his enchantments and grafted aether gems sat in his skin. The heat died away as quickly as it came, leaving him standing as he was.

He wasn’t dead.

Turning to the side, he could see that Kate was also alive. She looked just as shocked as he was, her eyes affixed wide as she patted down her body as if expecting to find a bullet wound hidden somewhere on her person.

After some time, he looked back to Amnios, the Hydra still peered at him from that far-to-close head. The Hydra’s other heads were also watching them intently, as if they were expecting something, waiting for some sort of event, an enraptured audience watching the clown juggle some flaming swords.

“I don’t understand,” Alex said.

The heads did their fast huddle conversation before responding to his unspoken ask. “Our breath would have destroyed any spell that was controlling or altering your mind. It looks like there was nothing of the sort.”

That was interesting information. Not only did Alex not know mind control was a thing that would be done, there were also countermeasures to it. Of course, knowing he wasn’t under such a spell was also great relief.

“Then that leaves only one thing,” Amnios continued. “You are telling us, the truth.”

A deep rumbling murmur came from the Hydra as it seemed to hum to itself. Even that humming rattled the cavern, making Alex fear a cave in that would crush his body flat. After a few moments, it stopped and the beast lowered all of its heads toward the ground, training fourteen eyes on him.

“Well then, little hatch-ling,” it said. “Let’s talk.”

And so, Alex and Kate did their best to explain their entire story. From arriving in the forest, to the Kobolds—creatures the Hydra seemed to know of already, and was seemingly greatly amused by—the Terraxum soldiers, the vote, and the warfront. All the way to their escape from the political clutches, their travel, the Hive Dungeon and the tokens and their new golden handcuffs.

It all came spilling out with the Hydra barely stopping them to ask a question or add commentary.

When they were finally done, Amnios only nodded its many heads and hummed yet again. Alex didn’t like the humming, but felt asking it to stop would be rude in a way that would risk his life once more, so he stayed silent.

“You’re story intrigues us,” Amnios said. “Being from another world, forced to prove your worth to the dark heavens. And you have done much in such a short time, even by the standards of you low races.”

The last comment felt like a bit of a jab, but Alex bit his tongue.

“I know of these Primal Chimera to which you speak, and there are indeed powerful in strange ways. Even the Kin has trouble eradicating their hives completely. They always seem to come back. But that is neither here nor there, if what you say is the truth… it is possible that I am but a memory that thinks itself to be real.”

Alex nodded as the beast voiced aloud the problem at hand. Dungeons were weird and strange things. The System could have trapped the Amnios into a pocket dimension connected back to Aetherios, or simply made a copy when forming a Dungeon spontaneously. Knowing which was impossible. And trying to break Amnios out of the dungeon—it would spell death for Amnios and everyone involved.

There was no doubt in Alex’s mind that the combined might of Urhara Empire could take down the Hydra. Their Emperor and Empress alone might be able to do so, and Alex had no idea how many other hidden powerhouses the Empire had. That wasn’t even going into the question of “how”, as the Chimera’s seemed to have a unique set of advantages, their copying of Alex and the others after the Queen had eaten their flesh, but also the Ascended golden energy the Queen had taken from Alex in their fight.

The Hydra had neither of those.

“It matters not if I can manage to escape the enemies cage. If the world outside is as you say, then my task is still the same. I must pass on the knowledge of our Kin so you may retake the mantel and fight against the Heavens on our behalf.”

“Fight, against the Heavens?” Kate scoffed. “We are mere adapts, how can we fight the System?”

“You are young now, yes. But every Dragon first hatches from an egg from growing into an Ancient-Wyrm. When that happens, you must be ready.”

Amnios wasn’t exactly wrong. Alex knew they only had so much time until the trail timer hit zero. He was fearful to think restarting the war between itself and the Dragons would piss the System off more than anything. But, after thinking it over a moment, he doubted that.

The System had created that very Dungeon in the first place. It kept Amnios “alive”, for a reason. The System kept the lava room challenge intact, and it was the System that gave Kate the bonus reward of her constitution. Even Alex’s Wyrm-Heart came from an item he had doubt from the System’s Dungeon Shop.

Was it the System being arrogant, not thinking the Dragon-Kin could possibly regain their former strength? Or was it more than that?

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While Alex admitted that it sounded like him gaining the Wyrm-Heart was a stroke of immense luck, he was starting to think that might not be the truth. There was a possibility that some kind of plan was in place, and Alex wasn’t sure how far down the rabbit hole really went.

Despite all of that there was something that Alex couldn’t imagine himself doing, and that turning down a possibly many-thousand year old Hydra went it offered to teach and mentor them in their skills and abilities.

“The first thing you must learn, young kin,” Amnios said as Kate and he took their places standing in the cave. Amnios had them move clear of each other, and had one head lowered down to each of us as he talked.

“Lesson one, a Dragon never forgets.”

As it turned out, that specific rule was for more literal than Alex knew. But it was revealed to him in very short order. The large head that was in front of him moved forward, its immense snout neared his face, and just barely brushed against his forehead.

In that brief connection, a flash of energy leapt from the Hydra into Alex. He felt it swim into his body and move through his soulgate with high speed. Visions, smells, sounds and more hit his mind all at once, like sitting in a room filled with a hundred holovids all being played at the same time.

“Ugh, fuck,” he gripped his head in both hands as he tried sorting through what Amnios had just showed to him.

“Oh, that was a lot in there. I’ll need some time to parse through that… uh, actually, wow, okay. This is strange.” Obby said in his mind. The illusion body of little rock was holding a small orb of draconic energy in its tentacled hands, looking at with its eye squinted heavily.

What is it?

“Its an impartment, memories, and understanding coded into energy. But uh… I can’t read it all. Their is feeling and understanding in here that I can’t parse. And its not aether, either, its that weird draconic stuff your Wyrm-heart uses. You’ll have to figure this out mostly on your own.”

Wonderful. He sighed.

“You won’t be able to understand everything I just showed you, but you will in time as you learn more of how to properly utilize your heart. For now you need to learn how to use your draconic energy,” Amnios said.

Even as the Hydra spoke to him, he could far in the distance that Kate was also speaking to Amnios other head. The five above him, not talking to either worldstrider, looked absorbed in conversing with each other.

“Activate your heart, and show we me what you have already learned.” The Hydra demanded.

“Um… Activate it?”

“Yes.”

Alex scratched at his neck embarrassingly. “I can’t.”

“What? You can’t.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It always just activates on its own, usually when I’m heavily injured.”

He heard a new rumble come from the Hydra’s chest, this one not at all a simple hum. It looked like Alex was turning out a bigger disappointment than he had realized. He didn’t understand the draconic energy, was ignorant of the Dragon’s history and the lore of their Kin, and wasn’t even able to use his constitution if he wanted to.

“You can’t activate your heart, and you can’t use your Dragon-fire?”

Alex sighed and sat down on the ground. He felt a lecture coming on, and he knew how these things usually went. Holly had said be careful, but she didn’t think about the fact that while Alex may usually get hurt in his crazy plans, the second most common outcome was him spending hours looking over and learning new things.

It would take awhile.

“Dragon-fire is the energy born from the soul of Dragon-Kin. Not all Kin have access to Dragon-fire, and not all Dragon-fire will be the same for every member of the Kin,” Amnios began their lecture.

Alex nodded his head. Taking notes, Obby?

“As always flesh-sack.”

***

Four hours later, Alex felt like he had both made huge steps in progress for his constitution, and also somehow had made a thousand steps back.

It was tough wrapping his mind around the fact that the Wyrm-Heart in his soul space had been filling him with a type of energy that wasn’t aether. Even though it still felt similar, and despite the fact the heart seemed to steal a portion of all the aether he gathered.

Luckily, Amnios was there to explain. Correcting him on terminology and understanding.

Once Alex showed the Hydra his aether caustic blood, things got even more interesting. His blood looked to be a combination of the inherent biology of the Wyvern’s blood he had infused into his body, but also the properties of draconic energy itself. He seemed to hate aether and the System inherently, which is why it attacked any foreign aether that it touched.

Why it didn’t consume all the aether in his own, body, he didn’t know. Amnios guessed that his Wyrm-Heart recognized his aether and saw it as helpful, ignoring it entirely. But that was just a guess.

The next lesson Alex got was on Dragon-fire, the purest expression of controlling draconic energy for Kin, at least according to Amnios.

A Dragon’s breath, its fire, was an attack filled with the purest filtered form of their draconic energy, and contained a piece of their own essence. It was what made the attack so powerful, devastating enough to threaten any foe within the same tier of power, and even harming tiers above the user if the Dragon was strong enough.

Amnios insisted that Alex should be able to access Dragon-fire.

As someone having a Wyrm-heart, his constitution and bloodline was nearly one hundred percent pure. If his bloodline was only that of a Wyvern or Basilisk—each also dragon kin—it would be rare but not impossible for him to get Dragon-fire. Other kin, like Hydras, typically had their unique Dragon-fire regularly, even if it was almost always a lesser form of a pure dragon.

Others, like drakes, almost never were able to produce Dragon-fire at all.

Alex felt like a drake, because he couldn’t even prod his Wyrm-heart into action, or even manipulate the most basic of draconic energy in his body, let alone harness and refine draconic energy into a breath attack.

“That is what I am here for.” Amnios assured him. “I can provide instruction, and teach you both to reach your full potential.”

“How long would that take? Days? We don’t have a lot of time,” Alex said.

“Days?” Amnios’ many heads all chuckled at once, even the one that was far off instructing Kate. “All of your training, if done properly to let you reach a level to master your energy, and your fire, will take at least ten years.”

“Years?!” Alex yelled in shock.