Path of Dragons-Chapter 56Book 8: : A City Under Siege

Elijah tumbled free of the sphincter, gasping for breath in his human form. For whatever reason, his Ring of Aquatic Travel hadn’t worked in that horrible space, so he’d very nearly suffocated. But that was far down his list of most disturbing things about the experience.

He’d been swallowed before. He had been digested alive while inside a monster’s stomach. But spending nearly half an hour slowly being forced down a compressed, fleshy tunnel filled with mucus was definitely worse than anything else he’d ever been through.

Pushing himself to his hands and knees, he hacked up the mucus he’d inadvertently swallowed. It was a disturbingly large amount, and from the twisting in his stomach, he knew there was quite a bit more that was beyond his ability to regurgitate. Hanging his head, he spent a long while trying to simultaneously catch his breath while wrapping his mind around what had just happened.

Primal Realms, it seemed, could be very different. The Desolate Reach had allowed them to investigate and prepare without forcing them to enter. This one – called Chimeric Forge – was clearly very much unlike Elijah’s previous experience. The most obvious difference was that it hadn’t waited on his consent before dragging him inside, but he suspected that it wouldn’t end there.

To figure out what was going on, he raised his head and looked around. Already, he’d used Soul of the Wild to parse the basic features of his surroundings, but because he wasn’t in any immediate danger, he’d stopped there. Now, though, he could see things in much greater detail.

He had appeared in the center of what looked like a courtyard. Walls of rough stone rose all around him, reaching a height of more than a hundred feet. The ground was almost entirely bare, save for a few fleshy tendrils emanating from the sphincter from which he’d come.

But Elijah was not alone.

A tall figure stood only fifteen feet away. They were incredibly thin, and Elijah estimated that they were at least ten feet tall. More distressingly, their proportions were entirely wrong. That observation was confirmed when they swept their grey hood back, revealing their head.

They spoke, but Elijah had difficulty paying attention to their words. He was too focused on the enormous black eyes, pale blue skin, and sleek shape to focus entirely on what was said.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, what?”

“This is an auspicious day, champion. You have come to save us, have you not?” the creature asked. The voice was like a thousand hisses all twirled around one another, though with a hint of an ethereal echo giving it an even more distinct sound.

Just then, Elijah felt a notification begging for his attention. So, before answering the alien-looking creature, he focused on the message that appeared before his inner eye:

You have entered Chimeric Forge. To conquer this Primal Realm, you must save the city of Vey’thaal by braving the Abyssal Glassworks, forging a path through the Veinroot Hollows, and finally, dismantling the Forge of the Fleshwright.

“Shit,” he muttered, realizing something that hadn’t quite clicked. The Primal Realm didn’t require him to meet a bunch of prerequisites before entering. Instead, he’d been forced inside. Worse, he didn’t have a team backing him up, either.

He was all alone.

He clenched his fist and wanted to scream, but he knew good and well that doing so would do no good. If he wanted to survive, he had no choice but to play along and focus on conquering the Primal Realm.

Finally, he answered the robed alien, saying, “Yeah. I guess this is Vey’thaal, huh?”

“Indeed, Champion. It is the last bastion of my people.”

“First of all, stop calling me that,” Elijah said. “Second, you’d better tell me what’s going on here.”

“Follow me. All will be explained after you are afforded the opportunity to…clean yourself.”

Elijah wanted to object, but when he looked down at his armor, he saw that it was still covered in sticky mucus. Thankfully, most of it was clear, but it definitely had a distinct smell to it. Like slightly bad fruit.

So, he agreed to follow his host, and they escorted him from the courtyard. The surrounding structure was strikingly similar to what he might expect from a medieval castle, including flickering torches on the walls, slightly faded tapestries, and thick carpets on the floor. However, each of the tapestries featured dizzyingly complex geometric designs, and the carpets were festooned with mind-bending optical illusions that reminded him of M.C. Escher etchings.

He pulled his attention away from those details as he was shown into a room populated by nearly naked aliens. They wore clothing, though their garments covered almost nothing of their androgynous bodies. Even as he entered, he noticed a large tub of steaming water in the center of the room. Soon enough, he was told that the attendants would clean his armor and clothing while he bathed himself. So, Elijah quickly disrobed, feeling only slightly frustrated by the lack of privacy.

The only reason he wasn’t more embarrassed was because the creatures were so clearly alien that he didn’t think they cared one way or another about his nudity. To them, it was probably like seeing a wild animal naked.

Or that was what he told himself. However, he did catch a few glances in his direction that definitely didn’t stick to that idea.

Regardless, Elijah soon slipped into the steaming water and gratefully began the arduous process of ridding himself of the foul-smelling mucus. As he scrubbed his body, the attendants went to work on his armor, using something that slightly resembled cleansing powder to clean it.

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Trusting that they knew what they were doing, Elijah focused on the task at hand. It ended up taking almost thirty minutes before he was satisfied with his own cleanliness. When he exited the tub, it was almost entirely black with the filth he’d left behind. Sighing, he retrieved his armor and clothes, then dressed. Once he had the Verdant Fang in hand, he took a deep breath, feeling a little better about his situation.

“Alright. Two questions. First, what do I call you?” he asked his escort, who’d stood to the side, never once glancing at Elijah as he’d bathed. “And second, what’s the situation here?”

“I am called Eres.”

“Well, Eres – I’m Elijah. Nice to meet you. Now, the situation?”

Eres glanced at him, narrowing their eyes. “We have been under siege for all of modern history,” they said. “Our enemies are numerous and adaptive, and they have swept across our world with ruthless ferocity. We resisted, and at times, experienced some degree of success. However, the enemy is relentless, and one by one, our strongholds fell. Vey’thaal is the last bastion of our dying civilization. If it falls, we will be driven to extinction.”

“Oh. So, not great. Do you have a plan? I’m here to brave the Abyssal Glassworks, pass through the Veinroot Hollows, and dismantle the Forge of the Fleshwright,” he read from the notification. “First, I have to save this city, of course,” he amended after reading the notification aloud.

“Saving the city is impossible,” Eres stated. “Our intent is to escort you behind enemy lines and to our foe’s origin. There, you will find the locations you seek.”

“Hmm,” Elijah responded. That didn’t sit right with him, though he didn’t know how bad the problem really was. For all he knew, Eres was right. So, he continued, “I guess I need to take a look, then.”

Eres agreed, then led Elijah through a maze of halls and into a city. The place was absolutely massive, and it clearly housed tens of millions of people. However, it was just as obvious that things weren’t in a great place. Everywhere Elijah looked, he saw misery.

“We have enough food to sustain the population but not nearly enough to thrive. Our stores dwindle with every passing day.,” Eres remarked in a sad voice as they passed too-thin Vey’thaalians.

As they progressed through the city, Eres explained that they had been holding on for decades, but that, bit by bit, they had been driven back. Only the core of the city remained intact, with the outer bands having been abandoned.

Fortunately, the Primal Realm’s entry point had been close to the outer walls, so he only had to endure the hopeful stares of the other aliens for a little less than an hour before they reached the wall. It loomed high above them, even taller than he could have imagined. Inside, they climbed one flight of stairs after another until, some time later, they arrived at the top.

That was when Elijah truly understood the scope of the issue before him.

Millions of creatures steadily assaulted the walls. Most were entirely malformed and completely alien, but a few had recognizable features that suggested familiarity. But even from so far away – and the wall was at least a half-mile high – Elijah could feel the sense of wrongness billowing from below.

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The soldiers of Vey’thaal were not idle. Hundreds of thousands fought on the walls even as others sallied forth from gates Elijah couldn’t see, carving a path through the mutated monsters. It was all so overwhelming that it took Elijah a few minutes to truly wrap his mind around the forces arrayed against Vey’thaal.

Suddenly, he understood the wording of the notification he’d received.

He wasn’t meant to save these people – not directly, at least. Rather, he was supposed to conquer their enemy. Not the minions steadily charging the walls, but rather, whoever was responsible. The context clues of the notification told him that they’d been created, after all.

The label Forge of the Fleshwright definitely implied as much.

However, Elijah saw an opportunity before him. So, without further thought, he activated Shape of the Sky, then as he transformed, threw himself from the wall. Eres said something he couldn’t hear over the rushing wind. And then, he snapped out his wings and glided over the battlefield.

The abandoned parts of the city went on for miles, and it was all crawling with malformed monstrosities. However, Elijah did catch sight of some familiar foes. A flock of harpies launched themselves from a half-fallen building and made a screeching bee-line in his direction.

Elijah didn’t panic, though he could feel their power well before they reached him. Instead, when they drew close, he used Tempest Swarm.

A thousand tiny flies with glittering wings manifested all around him. Lightning sparked between them, and in only a second, the swirling wind reached a fever pitch. The harpies screamed their displeasure, but Elijah’s instincts had already taken over. With the distraction provided by Tempest Swarm – and the increase to his speed that came with the spell – he ripped into the flock of harpies with tooth and claw.

They fought back, though not terribly effectively. Their claws carried powerful afflictions, but Elijah had grown by leaps and bounds since his last major encounter with the hateful creatures. Before, those afflictions had been debilitating, but now, he could endure them long enough to bring his superior size, strength, and lethality to bear.

Normally, Elijah only used the Shape of the Sky for travel. It wasn’t terribly durable, after all. But that didn’t mean it was entirely incapable of doing damage. Whatever the intent behind the shape itself, it was still an enormous airborne predator, and he used that to his advantage, dipping and diving while raking his claws through the monsters.

Blood rained upon the ruined city below. Some of it belonged to Elijah, but most came from the harpies. In less than a minute, he’d defeated his foes.

However, the fight had not gone unnoticed. There were plenty of other flying creatures in the city, and they’d all seen what he’d done to the harpies. In moments, Elijah was faced with a growing flock of thousands. And many of them were far larger and presumably much deadlier than the harpies.

As successful as his previous battle had been, Elijah was well aware of his form’s limitations. He couldn’t win against such odds. So, he tucked his wings into a dive, aiming for a nearby mound of rubble. He hit the ground in a cloud of dust, already transforming into the Shape of Venom.

In seconds, he’d found his way beneath the rubble, where he could activate Guise of the Unseen. It was just in time, too, because one of the monsters landed only a second later. It looked like a pterodactyl, but with the feathered hindquarters of a bird of prey and eyes that looked a little too much like those he’d seen on the residents of Vey’thaal. It twitched with every movement, flicking its reptilian tongue out to smell the air.

It approached Elijah’s hiding place, almost as if it knew where he’d gone. Elijah clenched, ready to react in a heartbeat. The thing didn’t feel so powerful that he thought he couldn’t defeat it. In fact, he was already hatching a plan to do just that.

But a second later, the thing screeched – a sound that sent a shiver down Elijah’s spine – before launching itself back into the air.

In the wake of its departure, two things were obvious. First, flying to his destination – wherever it was – wasn’t really an option. There were too many enemies. That was probably the point, as Elijah wasn’t so naïve as to believe that flying was a unique characteristic of his class. Plenty of people probably had abilities that allowed flight, and the Primal Realm didn’t want them to bypass the dangers.

Annoying, but he could accept that. Traveling overland was slower, but he’d been forced into similar situations before.

The second thing he’d latched onto was that there were a lot of enemies out there. And if he was going to be stuck in a Primal Realm alone, he was going to need some levels to prop him up. Those two seemed to work hand-in-glove, at least as far as he was concerned.

The only question was how he intended to survive what he had planned.

With that in mind, he crawled out from beneath the rubble and made his way back to the city. He needed to have a talk with his new friend Eres.