Chapter 197: The ‘D’ Word

***On a weathered Birth Certificate in a burnt-out husk of City Hall***

William ‘Billy’ Red Kline

Born Feb. 14, 1970, Berkeley, California, to Jessica Annabelle Kline and George Nathanial Kline.

Sex: Male

Place of Birth: University of California, Berkeley, Astrobiology Division.

Weight at Birth: 84 Lbs

Blood type: Unable to acquire.

The trip through the rocky mountains had been pleasant enough: Nothing particularly dangerous tried to kill them, and the road had been magically cut straight through the range, resulting in an easy ride with an inordinate amount of tunnels, with only the occasional breath of fresh air, where an offshoot of the main road would spread into a nearby valley.

These valleys were filling up with little pop-up towns build of freshly hewn wood in little two story boxes: The designs were nearly identical to old black and white pictures Perry had seen in history books. Back when people waterproofed their houses with kerosene.

It begged interesting questions about the nature of the Eternal Empire’s infrastructure.

They had semis to pull people’s pop-up farms out where they could settle down, but didn’t have enough steel to make anything bigger than a frontier town saloon?

It could be the fault of the road, Perry supposed.

Normally to build a road that spans the continent, you need enough infrastructure to support it in the first place, which implies you’d also have enough raw supplies and heavy equipment to do something with it.

Not so with this Eternal Empire. Certain aspect of their development were lopsided in an unnatural way.

To Perry, it felt like…someone was playing a Civilization game and trying to blitz the transportation tech tree and snatch up all the land and resources right out of the gate.

But all those questions and comparisons flew out of his head when they left the Rockies and encountered their first major city, replaced by one burning question.

“What is that!?” Perry asked, pointing at the massive statue rising above the walls of the city, surveying the road approaching the city with an air of unassailable superiority.

“Oh that?” Karen said, craning her neck and shading her eyes against the sunset casting the city and the statue looming over it in a pinkish hue.

“That’s Emperor Tyrannus. Well, not him, obviously. A statue of him.”

“That. Is a dragon.” Perry said, arm still raised.

Nat glanced up from where she was working on Boomer’s code on her laptop and froze, her jaw dropping.

“Well, yes, technically, I suppose, but the word doesn’t really do his Majesty justice.” Karen giggled like a schoolgirl, causing Perry to lose his follow up question.

“It’s funny,” She said, cocking her head to study the statue. “In the past, I heard human rulers forced others to call them Majesty. It’s not forced here. There’s real Majesty here. I saw him during a speech in the capital once…”

Karen’s face flushed with zealotry.

“It was an experience. Shall we head into New Seattle?” She said, turning to them, her expression souring at their complete lack of reverence.

“Five bucks,” Perry said, holding his hand out to Heather.

“No way,” Heather said, crossing her arms.

“You said, and I quote, ‘I bet you five bucks this Tyrannus is actually a woman in disguise pulling the strings of the Empire behind the scenes through a series of poorly contrived accidents.’”

“Prove it’s not a woman in a dragon costume.” Heather said.

“Prove I’m not three midgets in a trenchcoat,” Perry replied, making ‘gimmie’ motions with his hand.

“You’re certainly hung like a midget.”

“Guys…” Nat said, giving them ‘disappointed’ look.

“Ugh, fine, but if it does turn out to be a woman in disguise you’re paying me back a thousandfold.” Heather muttered, slapping the money in his hand.

“Deal,” Perry said, pocketing the currency and fishing out his phone.

“Does that money have my face on it?” Natalie asked.

“Shhhh, I gotta make a phone call,” Perry muttered, keeping his gaze on the statue visible from every direction for miles. Reminding people who they answered to.

“Did you mint Chicago money with my face on it!?” Nat demanded, her face reddening.

Perry shrugged. That wasn’t exactly what it was, but it was probably better to let her think it was Chicago’s new money. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea.

Perry took a picture, sent it then dialed up gramma.

“Hey, how come you have service?” Heather asked.

“Spy drone above us boosting my signal,” Perry said, pointing above them.

“I’ve been without the internet this ENTIRE trip, and you could’ve fixed it!?” Heather’s face darkened.

“You didn’t ask,” Perry said, giving her a raspberry, switching gears when Gramma picked up.

“Why did you send me a picture of a dragon statue, Paradox? Please tell me it’s not for the reason I think it is.” Gramma said.

“Yeah, seems like there’s a dragon running the west coast.” Perry said.

“K’gath Manka Forzeth!”

(rough Translation: Drown a baby in oil)

“By all the gods, I thought we’d left them all behind. Listen, you’re in a very dangerous position, Paradox. Come back to your own city as soon as you can. Dragons are natural Essence users, dangerous as hell and possessed of savage cunning that dwarfs that of a human. They have a short fuse, inhumanly sharp senses, and are so damnededly hard to kill that dragon hunts are called ‘campaigns’.

“Killing a single dragon is measured in years and thousands of lives spent, Paradox.”

“Even worse when it has it’s own army, I imagine,” Perry mused, dodging Heather’s shin kick and giving her the password to access the surveillance drone’s internet.

“What do you mean?” Gramma asked through the phone propped up by his shoulder.

“Well, what I said earlier. The dragon seems to be running the country.”

“What do you mean? They’re paying tribute to avoid being destroyed, right? The statue is an attempt to appease the beast, right?...Right?”

“Nah,” Perry said, glancing over at Karen, who watched him curiously. “More like he’s setting taxes, building roads, has a private military, creates laws, infrastructure, and has a statue in his honor.”

Gramma scoffed.

“Dragons don’t rule. They can’t be bothered. They view humans as weak, pathetic creatures unworthy of their time and attention. Any interaction with humans is either violence or extortion.”

“I think this one didn’t get the memo,” Perry said, glancing back to the city where a deployment of a hundred or so boxy armored cars drove out of the oversized front gate, following the road up the slope of the mountain towards them, two by two, each flying that distinct flag: a red dragon in front of a black sun.

“Hey gramma,” Perry said as the double line of trucks streamed towards them.

“Eh?”

“What kind of spells require dragon essences?”

“Some of the best. Invulnerability, immortality. Dragonfire, of course, and many more.”

A moment later, the Welcome Wagon arrived, and a honest-to-god butler stepped out of an armored limousine and motioned them inside.

“The diplomat from Chicago, Paradox Zauberer and company?” he asked

“That would be us.” Perry said, turning back to Acolyte Karen and her squad of misfits and performing a Manitian bow. “Thanks for the escort, Acolyte Karen Figgis. It’s a shame our meeting was completely uneventful, but that’s nice too, in its own way.”

“Umm… yeah. You’re welcome,” The zealot said, shifting nervously in place, her mind warring between killing Perry for disrespecting her god, and being grateful for the olive branch.

“This reminds me of your mom’s SUV,” Heather said as they climbed in. the limo had an extra couple feet in every direction, more akin to a luxury airliner than a long and narrow limousine.

“Except the stripper pole,” Perry said as he settled himself on the opposite side of the car to give them space to follow.

Luxury was generally a good sign. It meant the Eternal empire was intending to butter them up before they started negotiations…or keep them calm before they killed them.

“Follow along behind us,” Natalie told Boomer before joining them, evaluating the stripper pole in the middle of the limousine just a moment too long.

Karth climbed on top of Boomer, looking like a fairy riding a beetle…except nearly thirty feet tall combined.

“My master thought you’d like this. To replace the one you lost,” the butler said, handing Perry a head-sized lump of obsidian.

“Oh sweet!” Perry snatched the vulcanic glass out of the older gentleman’s grasp and snapped it into two pieces. He only needed half to make another sword.

Perry didn’t miss the ‘I watched the whole fight and know exactly what happened’ subtext, but he was just happy to get his fancy sword back.

Attunement 59-65

Tap, tap, tap.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The butler paused for a moment as Perry began shaping the obsidian with his bare hands, stretching it out with his fingertips and knocking off lumps where they didn’t need to be with a summoned knapping hammer, fusing them back together where he needed more mass.

This was going to be stronger than his previous one.

“Beverage?” The butler asked, offering a glass of…

Perry sniffed, picking up alcohol.

“Sorry, we’re all underage.”

“The legal drinking age in the Eternal Empire is sixteen.”

“…When in MegaRome,” Perry said with a shrug, downing some. The chances of poison were minimal. No poison could kill Perry fast enough to avoid some serious collateral damage. “Hey, that’s not bad. I was expecting rotting fruit taste.”

Nat wrapped her hands around a glass and took a sip, finding it delicious.

Heather sighed, unable to partake.

“It’s from my master’s own private brewery,” The butler said.

“Your master being…” Perry said, his hands continuing to work. There was always the possibility this was a minor aristocrat trying to curry favor with Perry.

“Tyrannus, of course. He’s expecting your arrival in the eternal Empire’s capital.”

No such luck. On one hand, Perry wouldn’t have to deal with annoying politics. On the other, not having any dissent within the political landscape indicated that Tyrannus’s stranglehold on politics was monolithic. Which was its own problem.

“I was under the impression we were still hundreds of miles away,” Perry said, checking the straightness of the new blade, tugging it to the side a bit until it had the curve of a saber. This time Perry made the edge only on one side. Given how sharp it was, a double-edged sword was impractical.

“We have a gate connecting most of the major cities. New Seattle is one such city. We’ll arrive at the palace in less than an hour.”

“Excellent transportation technology,” Perry said, hiding his real thoughts. Teleportation gates don’t grow on trees, and somebody had to have footed the bill. It probably wasn’t Tyrannus.

“Thank you, sir.”

Areosolize.

Perry pulled a can of spray-on rubber out of the ether and was about to spray a handle onto the new sword when he realized he was in an enclosed space with a pregnant Heather.

Perry ducked his head out the window and applied a quick handle and sheathe to the saber before pulling it in and setting it aside.

“I take it you’re not authorized to speak on behalf of your country?” Perry asked.

“You would be correct.”

So Perry sat back and waited, enjoying the limo ride.

He didn’t get many of those in his daily life.

True to the butler’s word, forty-seven minutes of waiting found them in a richly appointed waiting room, which looked like the study of a particularly arrogant professor.

Book shelves lined the walls of the cavernous room, stretching high enough into the air that someone would need a ladder to reach them. between the shelves, the walls dripped with diplomas:

THE REGENTS OF THE

University of California

ON THE NOMINATION OF THE FACULTY OF

THE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

HAVE CONFERRED UPON

WILLIAM KLINE

THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

WITH ALL THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES THERETO PERTAINING

GIVEN AT BERKELEY

THIS SIXTEENTH DAY OF DECEMBER IN THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOUR

Underneath were a bunch of squiggly signatures confirming the authenticity of the degree. Perry scanned the walls and saw that there were dozens, each only a couple years apart, starting with mundane human knowledge, math, science, physics, etc, and gradually morphing into Phd’s on things like ‘non-euclidean Essence physics’ and ‘demonic law’. A pace a human couldn’t handle…

Ah, crap.

“Who the hell thought giving a dragon a college education and a fetish for hoarding knowledge would be a good idea?” Perry demanded, scowling.

“That would be U.C. Berkeley,” A voice from behind him shook the very ground.