Chapter 57 – Reconsiderations and the Festival (Part 2)
After the sequence of revelations and the macabre autopsy in the west wing of the mines, the party was finally released to rest. The weight of knowing that a demonoid had been manipulating the excavators underground lingered like a shadow over them, but Kaelen's psychic exhaustion and the group's collective fatigue spoke louder.
The following morning, they were awakened by gentle knocks on the door of their suite at the inn. A messenger from House Serpentis delivered a scroll sealed in red wax: the Barons informed them that, following the resolution of the volcanic gas crisis and the dragonic resonance felt throughout the city, a grand festival honoring the Ancestral Dragon Roun would take place in three days. As the newly proclaimed "Spokespersons of the Dragon," they were the absolute guests of honor.
“Since I already agreed with the Baroness yesterday, I couldn't do anything but sigh...” Kaelen thought, staring at the wax seal on the wooden table. “Although I find noble feasts a bureaucratic hassle and a waste of time, I must be pragmatic. In our current situation—carrying three giant Dragon-Turtle eggs kept under armed guard in the magma chamber—three days of rest and preparation in a safe city are a luxury we cannot refuse.”
They headed down for breakfast and encountered an absurdly lavish spread in the inn's dining hall. There were baked breads on volcanic stone, tropical fruits brought from trade routes, smoked meats, and fresh juices. Kaelen briefly suspected poisoning out of excessive generosity, but soon noticed the innkeepers staring from the counter with wide eyes, bowing devoutly every time he glanced in their direction. The legend of the Dragon's Spokespersons had already spread.
After filling themselves, they walked to the back courtyard of the inn. It was a spacious area enclosed by high basalt walls, where an ancient subterranean ironwood tree stretched its thick roots between the fissures of the rock.
Kaelen noticed, however, that Akra remained unusual. Ever since the battle in the magma chamber, the little dragonoid girl exhibited abnormal drowsiness. Her fast reflexes were sluggish, and she walked dragging her steel gauntlets along the ground.
“The blood of the True Dragon she swallowed is still being digested by her cells...” he analyzed, observing the little girl lean her back against the tree trunk and let out a long yawn adorned with golden sparks. “Her dragonic biology is trying to absorb an energy density far above her mortal vessel. If I don't teach her to use Psionics to channel this load, she will continue to suffer from fever and neural strain.”
Kaelen approached Akra, maintaining a serene posture.
"Akra... do you want to learn something new today?" he asked, crossing his arms.
The little girl raised her head slowly. Her yellow eyes instantly shone with naive enthusiasm, though her scaly ears drooped with fatigue.
"Master is going to teach Akra new things?!" she exclaimed, giving a little hop before placing her hand on her belly and making a cute grimace. "What will it be, Master?... But... Akra apologizes... Akra is feeling very tired... and not hungry... Akra's belly still feels warm, just like when I ate the big dragon's drop of fire..."
Kaelen felt a pang of pity seeing the little girl's effort to stay standing. He squatted in front of her, meeting her eye level.
"I know it's hard, but what I'm going to teach you will help you digest that heat," he explained patiently. "Even though you can use magic and I can't, the principle of our energy is the same. First, I want you to try focusing on your hand and creating a little electricity... can you do that?"
Akra tilted her head to the side, blinking with a confused expression.
"Master wants... zapzap?"
Kaelen let out a suppressed chuckle at her terminology.
"That's right. I want a little zapzap in your hand. Can you do it?"
Akra nodded energetically. She clenched her fists and concentrated her will. Within seconds, small blue and golden electric arcs began jumping between her fingers, crackling in the dry air of the courtyard.
"Very good. Keep that charge stable," he ordered, bringing his hand close to hers without touching her skin.
Kaelen adjusted his internal posture, focusing on his psionics. Since he hadn't performed direct atomic acceleration in that child body for some time, he felt a slight organic resistance.
“First, I need to stabilize the telepathic channel and draw a fraction of the charge...” he mentalized, concentrating his energy. “Then, I need to ionize the air between the two of us, creating an invisible, low-density track.”
The first attempt failed; the charge dispersed in the air like a harmless spark. The second attempt generated an unstable sphere that burst with a dry pop. However, observing Akra's eyes glowing in fascination at his movements, he adjusted the frequency of the electrons.
On the fourth attempt, the magic of pure physics happened: a crystalline, bluish electrical wire connected Akra's little hand to Kaelen's palm. Next, he channeled the flow along the track of ionized air he had drawn in space toward the ironwood tree.
ZZZT-THWIP!
A beam of ultra-high-precision accelerated electrons fired from his hand, cutting through the air in a fraction of a second. The beam pierced the dense trunk of the tree, leaving a needle-thin hole, perfectly cauterized from one side of the wood to the other.
Akra's eyes widened, mouth agape at the flawless hole in the tree.
"We now have a combined attack," Kaelen said, catching his breath while massaging his temples. "But I want you to train this, Akra. You have the genetics and energy reserve to do this on your own. I'll send the visual image of how to do it straight to your mind..."
Using Telepathy, he projected the visual diagram of the Ionization Track and Particle Acceleration into Akra's mind. However, he made a blunder: in the heat of the moment, he sent concepts packed with terminology from his past life—charge vectors, electromagnetic flux, and atomic mass.
The data overload on the telepathic channel triggered a throbbing wave of headache. He took two steps back, gasping while covering his eyes with his hand.
"Master! Are you okay?!" Akra exclaimed, startled, before scratching her head with a puzzled look. "Master put pictures in Akra's head!... Many things make sense now!... Akra needs to heat up the air and send the electrons... But, Master... what are electrons?"
He cursed internally. Damn it... I forgot to translate physics into her language!
He looked at the little girl, trying to hide his headache:
"It's... it's the zapzap, Akra!"
Akra hopped with pure joy, clapping her hands:
"So if Akra does the zapzap like you showed in the pictures in my head, I can do it just like Master?!"
"For now it will be difficult for you to control without burning your fingers, but yes... you have the capacity to make a huge zapzap. A giant ball of concentrated zapzap."
"YAY! Akra wants to make a big ball of zapzap! Bigger than Master's size!" she celebrated, jumping around the courtyard.
“Did I just create a monster?...” Kaelen thought to himself, letting out a nervous laugh. If this little girl manages to fire a macro-scale electron cannon with the reserve of Roun's blood in her body, she could wipe out an entire district from the map...
"That is simply horrible, Kaelen!" a voice echoed from the inn's veranda.
Kaelen was startled. He was so absorbed in psychic physics training with Akra that he had completely forgotten about the other two members of the group.
Valéria and Miri were sitting on the steps of the porch. The noble tigress had her arms crossed over her chest, her striped tail swaying from side to side in a clear display of jealousy and indignation.
"Besides completely forgetting that we were sitting here watching, you just made a hole in the poor innkeeper's tree!" Valéria protested, raising an eyebrow. "That is extremely unfair! When are you going to teach us?!"
Kaelen let out a weak laugh, raising his hands in surrender:
"My apologies... First I'll check Miri's progress, and lastly, I'll take care of you, Valéria. I believe your training will require much more time and space."
Upon hearing that her training would be special and longer, Valéria dropped her pouting face. Her feline ears perked up, and her posture relaxed, letting out a satisfied little smile:
"All right... but don't take long. I'll keep an eye on you two..."
“She remains terribly possessive and competitive...” he amused himself mentally, walking toward Miri.
The young heteromorph attendant was holding an ancient silver coin between her fingers. Seeing him approach, she puffed out her chest with pride:
"Master Kaelen! I don't know exactly how it happened, but after trying for days, I dreamed of you teaching me the exercise... And when I woke up a few days ago, I finally managed to move the coin by itself in the courtyard! The problem is that... after that, I got a terrible headache."
"That pain is perfectly normal, Miri," he explained gently. "It happens when you force your mental will without using a protective filter. Now, let's move to the next step of your evolution: Psychometry."
"Psycho... what?" she blinked.
"I want you to hold this coin, close your eyes, and visualize a simple question to the metal: 'Tell me your story. Where have you been before reaching me?'. Try to feel the memories recorded in the matter until you can see where it came from."
Miri looked at the coin, her eyes shining with fascination.
"Incredible!... I'll start doing that right now, Master Kaelen! I'll tell you what I see later!"
With Miri engrossed in her new exercise, Kaelen turned to Valéria. The tigress was already standing in the center of the courtyard, sporting a challenging glare while wielding her new ancestral multi-elemental spear.
"Your turn, Valéria," he said, drawing his training daggers. "Let's blend hand-to-hand combat with the control of your new artifact."
They had been exchanging intense blows in the courtyard for at least two hours. The metal of their weapons echoed noisily against the basalt. Valéria fought fluidly and fiercely, attempting to channel her mana's heat into the spear's blade, though she still struggled to activate the rune's pocket dimension with speed.
That was when a risky idea crossed Kaelen's mind. He touched his fingers to the bracelet Roun had given him—the artifact containing matrices of Space, Time, Earth, and Wind.
“I need to test Blink... the Micro-Fold of Psychoportation...” he reflected internally. “But to fold spatial coordinates without locking up my mind, I need the stimulus of real combat stress.”
Kaelen stared at Valéria with a conspiratorial smile and decided to cast a bait:
"Valéria... let me make a bet with you. If you manage to land a single clean hit on me today... I'll let you make any request of me. As long as it's within my power, I will fulfill it without hesitation. If it's impossible, I'll decline. What do you say?"
The exact second those words left the boy's mouth, Valéria's blue eyes seemed to burst into literal flames! The tigress's ears flattened against her head, and an aura of radiant heat began emanating from her body.
“Wait... why did she react with such a thirst for victory?!” Kaelen startled internally, feeling cold sweat run down his neck. “What on earth is this girl planning to ask of me?! I hope from the bottom of my heart it's nothing perverted or weird...”
Valéria gave him no time to think. She charged like a storm of claws and steel, unleashing frantic and blazingly fast thrusts. The girl was imbuing pure fire into the tip of her spear, completely bent on hitting him at all costs.
“Right... now it's my turn!” he mentalized, trying to maintain his defense while focusing his psionics on Roun's bracelet to fold immediate space.
First attempt at Blink: The spatial fold failed due to a miscalculation, and he nearly took a spear thrust to the shoulder, dodging at the last millisecond.
Second attempt: The temporal distortion fluctuated, creating a Chronic Echo—a visual duplicate from one second ago. Valéria attacked the illusion in confusion, cutting only air.
Third attempt: The coordinates misaligned in space, and Kaelen nearly tripped over his own feet.
On the fourth attempt, Valéria caught onto the boy's pattern and executed a devastating horizontal sweep with the spear shaft, aiming straight for his ribs. The hit was coming full force, and there was no physical room to dodge.
“Now!” Kaelen commanded his consciousness.
He forced the Psychoportation vector. The folds of space closed around his body, and he vanished into thin air before the spear shaft could strike him!
“I did it!... Or almost!”
The theory was to reappear three steps behind Valéria's back. However, due to a spatial calculation error and excessive momentum, Kaelen's Blink projected to the wrong coordinate: he reappeared three centimeters in front of her chest, mid-air!
The result was disastrous. Kaelen collided directly against the tigress's body in full motion.
With the sudden impact, Valéria gasped in shock and, by pure combat reflex, grabbed his tunic collar. However, the kinematic force of the boy's jump combined with her body weight caused them to completely lose their balance.
They tumbled hard onto the basalt floor. Valéria fell with her full weight directly on top of Kaelen's twelve-year-old human chest.
"HUFFF!" The air was summarily knocked out of the boy's lungs with the dry impact against the stone.
Kaelen's vision darkened for a few seconds while his brain tried to process the chest pain. Once again, the young master's high-level psychic experiment had ended in an embarrassing, unglamorous physical defeat.
When Kaelen finally regained consciousness, he realized his head was resting on something extremely soft and warm. Opening his eyes and looking up, he met Valéria's face staring down at him with a mix of relief, concern, and a touch of mischievous teasing.
The boy blinked slowly, feeling the pain in his ribs subside, and let out a sigh of defeat:
"Well... I lost the bet," Kaelen admitted, his voice slightly muffled. "What's your request going to be?"
Valéria beamed a radiant smile, keeping his head resting on her lap while adjusting her feline ears:
"I haven't decided yet... but what on earth was that? Suddenly you seemed to duplicate in the air, vanished into nowhere, and reappeared falling right on top of me!"
"I was trying out a new practical application," Kaelen explained, adjusting himself on her lap before sitting up on the stone. "It's a quick spatial displacement jump... in arcane terms, I think mages call it Blink."
Valéria raised an eyebrow in surprise:
"But that's an advanced technique! Usually only mages highly proficient in spatial magic can fold the fabric of the air like that."
"I'm not a spatial mage, nor can I use mana magic," the boy reminded her, touching the metallic artifact on his wrist. "But thanks to this bracelet Roun gave me, I started getting ideas to subvert some physical laws... Ah, and you've improved absurdly with that spear. Your movements are much more precise, and your fire magic is emanating a much denser heat. You can feel the pressure in the air."
The young tigress puffed out her chest, visibly proud and satisfied with the compliment:
"In the beginning, I tried channeling in various traditional ways, but nothing worked. So I decided to go back to the basics of my clan, and the spear finally reacted... Although this artifact is quite peculiar. Sometimes it seems to read my thoughts in combat, and other times it just ignores my mana."
"We still have three days in this city," Kaelen commented, standing up and dusting off his tunic. "In the afternoon, I have an obligation to inspect the development of the boiler project with the artisans. So whenever you decide what you want from the bet, tell me... but be rational and don't ask for anything that goes beyond reality."
Valéria gave a sly side-smile, with a dark and playful look that made the hairs on the back of Kaelen's neck stand up:
"Don't worry, my dear fiancé... I'll think about it with extreme affection and care..."
Witnessing that expression on the tigress, Kaelen had a terrible foreboding—Why do I feel like I just signed my own death warrant?... This girl wouldn't be that vengeful... would she?
The three days leading up to the festival passed at a surprisingly productive and calm pace. The group's routine was divided efficiently: mornings were dedicated to heavy training in the inn's courtyard—with Kaelen teaching noise filters and electric tracks to Akra, and tracking Miri's Psychometry progress—while afternoons were spent on technical supervision of the evaporation facilities and wood bending with the Lamia artisans.
The only figure who rarely appeared was Eradan. Kaelen found himself wondering if the poor elf hadn't been secretly "abducted" by the bureaucrats and nobles of House Serpentis, praying internally that he would survive the harassment of the subterranean court.
Early on the morning of the third day, the daughter of Baroness Vespera arrived at the inn. She wore an elegant silk outfit and displayed impeccable courtesy. After greeting the group with formal bows, she handed over the official scroll invitation, informing them that the festivities in honor of the Dragon Roun would begin promptly at 18:00, and an honor palanquin would pick them up.
Up until that moment, everything was going perfectly well. Disaster struck when Kaelen, taking his leave out of pure feudal courtesy, reached out and lightly touched the metal bracelet the young Lamia wore on her wrist.
The exact instant his fingers touched the adornment, the boy's Deep Psychometry triggered involuntarily, crashing into his consciousness with the force of a lightning bolt!
The grayish psychic vision exploded in his mind: Kaelen saw the Baroness's daughter in sleepwear inside her private quarters, holding a wooden paddle shaped like a small hand at the end. The girl was enthusiastically spanking her own backside while whispering Kaelen's name in a shameful trance!
CARRANCA!
Kaelen jumped backward almost two meters, tripping over his own feet while covering his face, burning with pure embarrassment and psychological horror.
The Baroness's daughter, noticing the boy's exaggerated reaction and his bright red face, interpreted the outburst in a completely distorted way. Her vertical eyes gleamed with a hungry, masochistic desire, as if she were about to devour him right then and there.
Valéria noticed the unhealthy dynamic in the same second. The tigress immediately stepped between the two, growling softly and shooing the noble Lamia out of the inn without ceremony.
As soon as the visitor left, Valéria crossed her arms and glared at Kaelen with a deadly look:
"What on earth happened here, Kaelen?!"
"I think I just lost several points of my mental sanity..." the boy muttered, covering his eyes with his hands, visibly traumatized. "I should have never given that disciplinary spanking to that Lamia... I bitterly regret it now..."
Valéria raised an eyebrow, her expression torn between mockery and jealousy:
"Now you regret it? You should have thought about the consequences before going around spanking nobles! After all, what did you see in her memory?"
"I think I ended up instilling a terribly perverted habit in that girl..." Kaelen confessed, stammering in dread. "Because of touching her bracelet, I saw things no sane human being should witness! It was the combination of my intimidation, her scales, and that punishment underground... I don't want to remember, or I'll burn my last brain cells! Certain doors of the human mind were not meant to be opened!"
Valéria couldn't hold it in and burst out laughing:
"So that means it was extremely effective! The Lamia fell completely in love with you!"
"But weren't you the one who promised to protect me from these things?! This is an injustice!" Kaelen protested, trying to defend himself. "Besides, her bust isn't even that big to attract me! She might be reasonably pretty, but it's nothing special!"
The exact second the sentence left the boy's mouth, Valéria stepped forward and gave him a painful, precise pinch right at his ribs.
"AII!" Kaelen winced in pain.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that last part," Valéria said with an extremely sweet, threatening smile. "And stop measuring women by their bust size immediately! I may have promised I wouldn't hit you, but I never promised I wouldn't re-educate my fiancé... You know, Kaelen... sharp knives exist in the world, and so do mages specializing in limb restoration."
The tigress significantly lowered her gaze toward the boy's lower quarters. Kaelen felt a cold sweat freeze his spine.
"M-My beloved fiancée... you wouldn't damage something like that, right?" he stammered, swallowing hard. "Think... think of the good of our future children!..."
Valéria let out a mischievous chuckle and cited authoritatively:
"My mother always taught me: 'To educate a man once and for all, always keep a good knife handy and a familiar healing mage nearby.'"
"I hated that phrase with every fiber of my being..." the young master swallowed hard. "I think... I think it's time for me to go train! I hear Akra calling me out in the courtyard!"
Kaelen bolted down the hallway, while Valéria and Miri burst into laughter at the boy's dread.
At 18:00 sharp, the group was summoned. Everyone was properly dressed in noble tunics. To Kaelen's deep embarrassment, the transport sent was an imposing palanquin covered in silk and velvet, carried by eight robust Lamia guards.
The party was transported to the great banquet hall of House Serpentis. Baroness Vespera and her husband officially presented Kaelen and his group as the "Spokespersons of Dragon Roun," causing hundreds of curious looks from the nobility to turn toward the head table.
The seating arrangement at the main table placed Valéria to Kaelen's right, while the Baroness, the Baron, and their daughter occupied the center and left.
Soon after, Lamia attendants began bringing dozens of refined dishes and jars of drinks. Since Kaelen and Akra were biologically children, the boy strictly restricted any alcohol consumption for both. Valéria, for her part, refused wine glasses to stay on full alert as the group's guard.
In the center of the main table, Baroness Vespera made a point of personally serving a crystal bowl containing a glistening, sweet and sour amber preserve—the traditional Mormaço Jelly, extracted from deep roots in volcanic fissures.
For the cold-blooded physiology of the Lamias, that was merely a noble condiment to warm circulation on cold subterranean nights. Kaelen tasted a spoonful out of diplomatic courtesy and found the flavor surprisingly rich and pleasant, reminiscent of wild honey condensed with spices and nuts. Suspecting no danger, he ate generous portions alongside the roast.
Fifty minutes passed after eating the jelly and meat offered by the Lamias, and then the effect began to set in.
Kaelen tried to raise his water glass, but his hand missed the target by three whole centimeters, knocking against the wood. He blinked slowly, feeling as if his brain were comfortably floating inside a jar of warm gelatin. When he tried to calculate the motion vector of a napkin falling from the table, his predictive vision didn't show equations or lines, but tiny, funny blinking lights.
"Kaelen... why are you looking at the Lamia attendants and smiling to yourself with that silly face?" Valéria asked, frowning as she noticed the boy's completely glazed stare. "Are you looking at their busts again?!"
"Valéria... the gravity of this courtyard..." Kaelen muttered, his speech absurdly slurred and his tone solemn for someone about to tumble sideways off the bench. "It is decidedly tilting to the left... and these Lamias... they are so big and sway-y... though all this swaying is making me a bit nauseous..."
Beside him, little Akra let out a loud, completely meaningless giggle. The dragonoid girl was lying face down on the oak table while small electric sparks and bubbles of golden smoke drifted lazily from her nostrils.
Valéria stared at the two in absolute horror. She turned to Baroness Vespera and demanded to know what on earth was in that food. The Baroness, startled by the reaction, explained that it was just the traditional root preserve used to warm the blood.
The Baroness's daughter, spotting the perfect opportunity, didn't miss her chance. She approached the tipsy Kaelen, grabbed the boy's arm, and pressed her bust firmly against his shoulder, whispering in a velvety voice:
"Your Excellency is so strong and mysterious... Could you give me a few more spankings after dinner?..."
Valéria nearly leaped over the table in fury. She snatched Kaelen from the Lamia's arms and barked:
"Have you no shame?! Do you want a beating from me right now?!"
The Baroness's daughter looked at Valéria with a strange glint in her eyes and gave a corner smile:
"Depends... if he's the one beating me again... maybe I'd like it..."
"Lady Baroness, restrain your daughter immediately!" Valéria shouted, extremely nervous. "Kaelen is not well at all! We are going back to the inn right now!"
Valéria pulled Kaelen by the collar and tried to stand Akra up. However, the exact second the boy and the dragonoid tried to plant their legs on the ground, their muscle strength turned to jelly.
Kaelen and Akra collapsed face-first, completely passing out on the basalt floor of the hall, "drunk" on volcanic roots.
The entire feast ground to a dead silence, with all the Lamia nobles staring at the scene in sheer shock and despair.
