Chapter 14-395: Force, Too (1/2)

This was a scouting mission of sorts. I wasn’t dumb enough to go intruding directly into a dragon’s lair, especially an Ancient dragon. Well, I was if I had a sufficiently strong party with me, but that lot was dungeon-delving down south under the Spire, and I didn’t need them to do this.

I hadn’t even mentioned this to them, because they all wanted to see a true dragon up close, fight and kill it, and then see its hoard up even closer.

It was unlikely to be a truly impressive hoard, as I doubted this dragon had brought its full hoard with him before the Shroud came down, there was little doubt the Mahar would have made offerings to him for his knowledge, and they’d had many years to build up the reserves of silver, gold, and gems to do so, all on the backs of slave labor.

That would all be something for Professor Shellington’s people to address. The Land wouldn’t normally take sides in such an endeavor, but if an outsider were to spread its Bloodline among the Mahar...

I considered the odds that such a thing had not already happened to be small, but I hadn’t infiltrated any of the various Mahar aeries to find out. Half-dragon Mahar would undoubtedly be treated as sacred Bloodlines, and either become Priests or future kings. They would also be incredibly likely to overthrow the previous ruling Mahar soon enough. If so, there would be no need for them to leave their realms, obeying the naturally lofty isolationism of their father, if having a more malicious intent behind it.

Finding the truth of the matter would require knowing trading matters among the Mahar and their slaves, and we didn’t have an active intelligence network here. The Corsar were also unable to help, as their interactions with the Mahar tended to be of the shoot-first, then shoot-second variety.

Imperial Cold Blood dragons were not natives to this world. The Land would be very irritated with them, no less than the Demon Dragons whose Bloodline Legion had literally eaten away to remove from the Land. I had not felt that degree of irritation with the Mahar, unlike the festering of Syasstrux’s children dominating thousands of sapients.

Still, it was just something to be aware of, and when it came time for the Mahar to become Karma-fodder, to watch for and act upon.

The underground access naturally had Wards and Seals upon it, attuned to only admit Dragons first, and those with psionic power second.

That might have been a problem, except for the fact that psionic power couldn’t actually manifest here, instantly altering its nature to chi or mana, whatever was closest to its original intent. Passive psionic abilities instead became ki-centered Feats and the like.

Thus, fooling the Wards was simply a matter of catering to their expectations. The ruby-like Orb on Clavus came from that Cultivating Hou Lung, an equally inappropriate creature, but it was a Baneskull to Dragons nonetheless, and so held a Dragon’s Presence I just subbed for my own. Radiating a Psionic Presence was merely expending a mental-based spell, like ESP, and altering the spin of it in the wrong direction.

Of course, I also had to block the effect that alerted the dragon that something was passing his Wards, but when your Dispel Check is in the +58 base, +64 against Draconic Magic, suppressing key effects of spells while not completely unraveling them AND figuring out how to turn them on and off wasn’t actually all that hard.

I made a strong mental note that I didn’t have Psicrafting and I had better pick it up so I’d be fully prepared for this kind of thing in the future. It would be extremely likely that the Dragonheart of this dragon would Awaken me to psionics, if Terra-Luna’s experience was any guideline. We’d expunged the less aggressive Gem Dragons who had invaded us there just as merrily as the Elemental ones once they were discovered.

Still, the dragon could only ‘work in’ some psionic stuff, and still had to obey the magical Laws here as far as how stuff worked. A Spellcraft check at +53 had no problem dealing with his alterations to rote Formations and stuff, and indeed I found it an interesting challenge as the dragon tried to synthesize some form of Cerebral Theurgy here.

I imagined it was also restricted in gaining power under the Shroud, and Dragons tended to be fairly rigid in how they gained power regardless. The Sublime Chord stroked his Wards and spell defenses, and they all parted to let me through, not bothering to warn him of my intrusion.

I looked for the Formations embedded into the tunnel’s very form and shape. It was a trick typical of dragons, using seemingly natural structures as Nodes for complex tricks and traps. Such things didn’t escape my eyes, and I smoothly puzzled them out, suppressed them, and moved past.

A broader Interdiction and Scry Ward had both cut me off from everyone else and forced me into semi-materiality, but the water was still flowing through me undisturbed, so there was no sensing me by waves and flow disruption.

Now, the bigass boulder there might have been a problem, perfectly Shaped to block the tunnel, but Stone Shaping open a crack my immaterial form could squeeze through easily was not hard at all.

I highly doubted the dragon was expecting Druid-based Necromantic Wildshaping to be used to infiltrate his lair, either.

Not disturbing the water was very useful, and so was not disturbing the air. I didn’t have any of the negative energy attack powers of a spectre, naturally, so I didn’t have the Corrupting Presence or Aura of one, either. The best way he might have to sense my presence here might be by looking at the manafield and sensing the Sublime Chord caressing it... but I was also keeping that tight to me.

The exit/entry pool was in a large room with nothing else in it... save more Wards on the walls and the stalactites above, layered with a few more Watchspells and the like. I Suppressed them all into inactivity one by one, discerning how they all worked so that I could repeat the task in the future, and floated up out of the pool and towards the large entry, sized so that an elephant could get through with room. It was all done up in proper elegant arches, with very particular crystalline formations decorating them here and there.

Such décor repeated as I came out into the Shaped hallway there, scored here and there with the telltale markings of claws hard and sharp enough to carve through stone. All the Gem Dragons could dig with supernatural speed. I didn’t know where it had put the excess stone, but it had likely dug out all the rooms and corridors itself, then Shaped them into passages and chambers worthy of itself.

That naturally meant wall carvings to liven things up, display its knowledge, proclaim its status, and awe its underlings. Some minor spells to change the color of the stone and bas-relief Shapings became works of art trumpeting the glory of the maker.

There was his history proclaimed, in abstract and not-so abstract terms. I noted the careful attention paid to frills and joints, as the crystalline-style patterns repeated on the amethyst dragon images. The pattern used here and there as part of the bordering was effectively a fingerprint declaring who he was.