Path of Dragons-Chapter 48Book 9: : The Chosen One

The soft click-clack of claws hitting tiles echoed through the massive hall as Elijah, Oscar, and the pack of dogs followed the fire giant guard. The interior of the palace was even more impressive – and in a lot of ways, oppressive – than the exterior had led Elijah to expect, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of suffocation. Part of that was due to the dense blanket of heat and fire-attuned ethera in the atmosphere, but it was also due to the weight of his decreased attributes.

Every step felt like a chore. Every breath came at the end of conscious effort. He knew it was something of an illusion. A quick glance at his status told him that his attributes had only been halved. However, it felt much more onerous, like a god-like titan held his spirit in its heavy-handed grip. One squeeze, and he would cease to exist.

That feeling made it difficult to catalogue his surroundings, though he endeavored to notice as much as he could. The swirling orange patterns on the walls, the statues made from onyx and depicting giants, and tapestries featuring dense geometric designs were the highlights, but there were a host of smaller details that stood out as well.

Like the tiles that looked like molten rock but felt as solid as the surface of any other floor Elijah had trod upon. Or the elaborately robed giants they periodically passed. At first glance, they all looked vaguely similar, with the same coal-black skin, molten eyes, and red hair. However, the closer Elijah looked, the more he noticed that their features were just as different as any other group of people he’d ever seen.

But there were no women, at least as far as he could tell.

Maybe their women looked no different than the men. After all, female dwarves had beards. Who was to say that giants couldn’t have taken those sorts of similarities between the sexes even further? Certainly, Elijah had chosen not to make any assumptions about them. Not until he had more information, at least.

The dogs seemed perfectly at home as they followed the giant. Ray and Maymay fanned out, their noses to the ground as they followed some interesting odor. Meanwhile, Jackson and Sophie flanked Oscar, clearly in an attempt to guard him from harm. Freddy and Digby followed behind, obviously ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

The outlier was Oscar, who gripped the hafts of his hatchets with white-knuckled strength. Elijah wanted to soothe his friend’s tension, but he wasn’t entirely certain that it wasn’t warranted. Sure, they had some evidence that Escobar hadn’t been mistreated – the exact opposite, in fact – but Elijah had seen enough movies and read enough books to link the Chosen One moniker to sacrifice.

Maybe that wasn’t the case, but that was where his mind jumped the second he’d had a few moments to process what they’d experienced at the palace gates.

Though the palace was enormous – due as much to the giants’ stature as because it had clearly been built to show off the owners’ wealth – the layout was fairly straightforward. It only took three turns – all lefts – before they eventually reached their destination.

Along the way, Elijah got a glimpse of the other rooms within the compound, and he was astounded by the mundanity of it all. Certainly, the setting was fantastical, but the majority of the residents seemed entirely focused on normal tasks. Like a Baker kneading dough. Or a giant bent over a ledger. They truly seemed like real people and not creatures created to populate the Primal Realm.

Elijah had seen similar things in Vey’thaal, though he’d not paid much attention to the residents. He’d been far too focused on everything else at the time.

Now, he was a little calmer, which allowed him the room to see what amounted to an entirely alien – but still vaguely familiar – civilization. It was fascinating, to say the very least.

However, that fascination gave way to shock when they finally reached their end goal and he saw Escobar sitting atop a huge, mattress-sized cushion and being fed charred hunks of meat.

When he saw Oscar, he let out a series of chirping barks, then bounded from the cushion. His feet never hit the ground, though. Instead, his footsteps left tiny, burning pawprints in mid-air as he raced a few feet above the ground. Then, he leaped into Oscar’s arms and bestowed the man with a furious barrage of face-licks.

Elijah felt his friend’s – as well as the pack’s – immense relief. It mirrored his own as the knots in his shoulders loosened and he relaxed.

“What? Slow down,” Oscar chided, holding the dog close. “What is going on?”

The chihuahua went on a barking tirade, and though Elijah couldn’t even begin to understand what information the dog meant to convey, he could tell it was fairly urgent. Moreover, he could hear some subtle differences in the pitch of each bark, telling him that, while it might not have been a language of its own, there was meaning behind each sound.

After a couple of minutes – during which the other dogs danced excitedly around them and the giant attendants stood by, clearly uncomfortable but unsure how to react – the barking died down. Only then did Oscar explain what was going on.

“Chosen One is meant literally. They believe he is a prophesized champion of their people, meant to brave the Elemental Maelstrom, pass the tests of the Titans, and unlock the Titan’s Legacy,” Oscar explained. “They’ve been feeding him natural treasures meant to increase his fire attunement and prepare him for the challenges.”

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Elijah narrowed his eyes. “But he’s a chihuahua.”

That statement earned him a glare from Escobar.

“He’s a special boy,” Oscar said proudly as he scratched the dog’s ears. “His cultivation is more advanced than mine. He’s higher-leveled, too. I’m not sure how all of that works, though. His status is different than ours.”

Elijah frowned, then explained what Nerthus had told him about the system recognizing a species as a sapient race. “He’s probably on the verge of getting there,” Elijah added. “He’s certainly smart enough. The whole pack is. But the system works pretty slowly, I guess.”

Just when he was on the verge of going on, Elijah felt a presence coming from behind. He turned to see the approach of a slim fire giant wearing blood-red robes trimmed in gold embroidery. The figure was flanked by two high-level guards wearing elaborate armor and carrying enormous pikes, and the embroidery on his robes shifted with subtle ethera.

Elijah immediately recognized it as a powerful piece of equipment, though the giant’s staff was the true prize. At first glance, it looked like a twisted pillar of obsidian, though veins of glowing lava flowed from one end to the other, culminating in a ball of molten rock hovering at the head.

“Unhand the Chosen One at once!” he thundered, the butt of the staff slamming against the tile floor. The patterned fire rippled from the impact, spreading in every direction, and the local ethera swirled angrily. Elijah suspected that the giant was nearly as high of a level as the monstrous leviathan he’d recently killed, though he felt that the newcomer was far stronger.

Perhaps he had advanced his cultivation, while the leviathan had not.

Whatever the case, Elijah didn’t much care for the giant’s tone. Neither did the pack of dogs, all of whom let out low growls as they focused on the giant mage.

“Are you responsible for abducting the member of my pack?” demanded Oscar, speaking before Elijah could.

“I do not answer to the likes of you.”

At that, Oscar’s axes appeared in his hands. Their blades erupted into thick frost. Similar ethera swirled around the pack as their hackles rose and they prepared to leap into battle.

The giant took a step back with a rumbling hiss, holding his staff before him like it could ward off the cold.

That’s when Elijah chose to step in, and he planted himself between the two. Extending his hands in either direction, he adopted as soothing a voice as he could, saying, “Hold on. There’s no reason to get worked up. Oscar, you’ve found Escobar, who was unharmed. Mr. Fire Giant – you can’t blame a guy for coming after his family, right? Just tell us what’s going on. Maybe we can help.”

“Doubtful,” grunted the mage, looking down at Elijah with disdain.

“Or we could do this the other way,” he said, embracing Shape of Thorn. He had to force the spell to activate, and it felt like he was trying to push through a stubborn membrane to do so. But he made it work, though with no small degree of effort. Despite that, there was only a short delay – maybe a second – before the transformation twisted his body into the form of the thorned sentry.

When it had finished, he wasn’t nearly as tall as the giant, though he was a lot closer than he had been. What’s more, he knew that his forms came with an outward expression of power and a significant intimidation factor.

As it turned out, the giants were not immune to the latter.

“I don’t want to get too rowdy here, what with the threat of destruction hanging over my head. But I have reason to believe I could probably survive,” Elijah said. “You won’t.”

It was a lie, of course. He had no idea what form that destruction might take. But the giants didn’t know that.

Either his bluffing threat was credible enough to get through to the mage, or good sense prevailed, because the giant soon backed away and visibly relaxed. Then, he said, “We truly mean you no harm. The ones who took the Chosen One only did so because they are undisciplined and unevolved. Barely more than beasts. They only acted on instinct. We are far more civilized.”

“So you wouldn’t be upset to know that I killed them?” Elijah asked. “Like, a lot of them.”

He saw the giant’s thick fingers tighten around the haft of his staff, though his bearded face remained impassive. Up close, he could see that the mage’s features looked slightly more refined than those of the other giants he’d seen. Was that a mark of the so-called evolution he’d mentioned? Maybe.

“I assume it was in self-defense.”

“Some were.”

The guards tensed as well, clearly reading Elijah’s implication. They very much wanted to attack him, but they held back. It wasn’t because they were afraid of him, either. They were afraid of other consequences, which told him that he probably should be as well.

“Let’s just ease up a bit,” he suggested. “You can still get what you wanted from Escobar, right? He doesn’t have to be alone.”

“You would brave the Elemental Maelstrom as well?” the mage asked.

Elijah shrugged. “Don’t see why not,” he said. In reality, he knew that doing so was the only way through the Primal Realm.

“You will die,” the giant sneered.

“I don’t know. I’m pretty durable,” Elijah replied.

“Your scales will melt. Your skin will be scoured by the wind. Your flesh will be –”

“I get it,” Elijah interrupted. “Believe me, I get it. I know exactly how difficult it will be.”

“Thousands of others have died in the attempt,” the mage stated with obvious disdain. “True descendants of the mightiest titans. If you do this, you will fail.”

“I disagree,” was Elijah’s simple response.

The giant tapped his chin. “Very well,” he said after a moment. “You wish to attempt it, then you will be tested just as any other potential challenger. You will be forced to survive the Ring of Elements. Should you endure, you will have the chance to venture out into the Cracked Lands and prove yourself worthy to enter the Elemental Maelstrom.”

Elijah glanced back at Oscar, who nodded. The dogs each added a bark of consent to the mix. Even Escobar, who seemed almost eager, judging by how rapidly his tail wagged. So, without further ado, Elijah said, “Sounds good to us. Where do we find this Ring of Elements?”

The giant smiled, revealing his glimmering teeth as he said, “You will regret this, outsider. Right before your body is consumed by the all-devouring elements, you will see the error of your flippant ways. I look forward to witnessing your downfall.”

“Wow. Feeling the love here. Let’s get to it, then. You only live once, right?” Elijah said with a smile of his own. He glanced back at Oscar, who looked embarrassed as he shook his head. “What?”

“Nothing,” the man said. “It’s…nothing.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Nothing good has ever come after a YOLO.”

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