Path of Dragons

For a moment, the scene looked like it was frozen in time. Tiny icicles dripped from pink and white blossoms as snow cradled its roots. Nestled among those snowy berms was a white fox with nine tails. Ethera swirled around the guardian like gusting wind that sent ripples of energy in every direction.

Transfixed, Elijah stepped forward, and the fox stirred. It rose to its feet, tails twitching as it focused its attention on the intruder in its midst. For his part, Elijah held out a hand in an attempt to avoid startling the beautiful creature.

Aside from its swaying tails, it didn’t even twitch, and as he drew closer, Elijah realized why. The guardian had clearly reached the ascendent tier, just like him. He had no idea how guardians might attain that sort of power, but in that moment, he didn’t care about such mundane issues. He was far too captivated by the sheer perfection of the creature.

If the greatest artist in existence had been tasked with painting the perfect picture of a fox, they would have fallen short of the majesty of the guardian before him. It wasn’t just perfect. It was an idealized version of a snow-white vixen, a form unattainable in mundane nature. There was a nobility to it, an awareness that was neither overtly evident nor easily defined.

If god was a fox, then it would have looked like the nine-tailed creature beneath the equally majestic cherry tree.

And Elijah approached it just as reverently as if that were the case. Each step was deliberate and well-placed as he covered the ground between him and the magnificent creature. He could feel her through Soul of the Wild, and the vixen blazed in his awareness like a bonfire. She was far and away the most powerful guardian he’d ever encountered, and yet, Elijah felt no fear in her presence.

She stared at him as he approached, hand outstretched and his breath slow. Even so, his heart was beating out of his chest with excitement. That ceased when he passed beneath the outstretched branches of the cherry tree. A sense of calm swept over him, and his shoulders dipped in relaxation.

Finally, he reached the fox.

His fingers grazed her snow-white coat, and on instinct, he pushed Soul of the Wild to its limit. Tiny tendrils of his soul peeked out of his hand and latched onto the fox.

Images and emotions flooded his mind. Memories swept through him, enveloping his entire body as understanding bloomed in his very soul. The creature was a kistune, a guardian who had, for years, protected the cherry tree much as the panther had guarded the ancestral tree back on his island.

But it was not alone.

Dozens of kits roamed the forest. They were all mundane foxes, but they carried with them the potential of guardians. If they found an appropriate treasure – or if enough time passed – they would naturally grow just as powerful as their mother. Perhaps even more so.

Suddenly, the connection ended, and the fox disappeared.

It took Elijah a second of focusing on Soul of the Wild before he found the creature a few dozen feet away. Blinking, he turned to see an entire hunting party of grimlings fall to the ground.

Or pieces of them, at least.

In the center of that pile of parts sat the fox, licking her bloody paw.

A shiver went up his spine. As strong as he was – and he could safely consider himself the most powerful person on the planet – Elijah knew that if that fox wanted to kill him, she could. If he survived the initial attack, he might have a chance, but for now, he was very glad that she was not his enemy.

After licking her paw clean, the vixen rose to her feet and padded back to her position beneath the cherry tree, where she once again curled into a ball and lowered her chin to the snowy ground.

Elijah took a deep breath, then retrieved a bit of dried meat from his satchel. He tossed the hunk of meat to the fox, then backed away. She gobbled it up in only a moment, proving what Elijah had long known. Guardians were still animals. As intelligent and powerful as they were, they were still driven by natural instincts. So, if he wanted to make inroads with them, the easiest route to an alliance was through their stomachs.

However, Elijah only had so much food on him. Fortunately, foxes were well-known omnivores who often ate berries, nuts, and seeds. With that in mind, he retrieved another item from his satchel. The moment the grove fruit came into view, the vixen’s ears perked up, and she let out the slightest of sniffs.

Elijah tossed the strawberry-like fruit toward the vixen, and she eagerly snatched it out of the air. He hoped that would be enough to foster a positive disposition, because if he was going to build another dolmen, he’d found the perfect spot.

Now, he just needed to gain the trust of the vixen, then gather appropriate building materials. Fortunately, the area had clearly come from southeastern Ohio, judging by its mountainous nature. Elijah had never visited the area before the world’s transformation, but he knew enough about geography to know that the state had once played host to the Appalachians – or at least the foothills. Clearly, the touch of the World Tree and the reshaping Earth had experienced in its wake had enhanced those mountains, and now, they were at least as imposing as the Rocky Mountains had been before everything had changed.

That was fortunate, because where there were mountains, there were building materials. And in an ethera-dense region, those raw materials would likely be quite strong. So, after tossing another grove fruit to the nine-tailed fox, Elijah set off in search of some stone to quarry.

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Again, fortune was on his side, because the grimlings had no presence past the cherry tree. Once he’d established that, he took on the Shape of Sky and began his search. Only a couple of hours later, he found what he was looking for.

Most of the area was limestone, though Elijah’s interest was piqued by a seam of white stone that stood in stark contrast to the surrounding grey. When he looked closer, he noticed that it was shot through with pearlescent crystals that practically glowed in the weak sunlight. Importantly, Elijah could feel that the stone was at least as high of a grade as the dragonstone. Perhaps even better, though he couldn’t really make that judgement because the two types of stone felt so different to his senses. Where dragonstone was overwhelming in its might, this new material felt far calmer and much more subtle.

A lot like the fox.

To learn more, he’d need to have it appraised. However, for his purposes, it seemed perfect.

So, after shifting into the Shape of Thorn, Elijah got to work. His newly enhanced attributes served him well as he put his claws to good use. With his high Strength, he could easily cut through mundane stone. However, he was happy to see that even the surrounding limestone proved resistant to his efforts. If it was that durable, then the much more valuable white stone would be perfect.

Gradually, Elijah worked to quarry the stone. At first, he used his fists to shatter the surrounding limestone, but eventually, he was forced to carve it free with his claws. He’d have preferred the precision of a high-grade pickaxe and a chisel, but he had to work with the tools he had at his disposal. He hadn’t come to Forest Hills with the expectation of building a dolmen, which was a mistake on his part. Next time he went home, he would get Carmen to forge him a set of tools.

After all, he’d just gained five extra dolmen slots, and he had a feeling he would need to quarry more stone in the future.

It took Elijah an entire day to cut loose twenty-seven suitable blocks. Each one was about ten feet tall and half as wide. By his calculations, each one likely weighed somewhere between fifteen and twenty tons. However, due to his increased attributes, Elijah found that he could lift two of them at a time – one on each shoulder – so long as he remained in Shape of Thorn.

Which didn’t make a lot of sense. At its base, each point of Strength counted for somewhere around twenty extra pounds of lifting capacity. So, given that his Strength in the form of the thorned sentry, with all of his equipment on and buffs active, was currently over five-hundred, he should have topped out at around five tons. That was a lot of lifting capacity, but it certainly wasn’t consistent with his real capabilities.

But then again, Elijah had the advantages associated with his Body cultivation, the effects of reaching the third tier of overall cultivation, and Soul of the Wild working in his favor. On top of that, he suspected that tipping over into the ascendent tier regarding his levels had an effect as well.

In short, he was somewhere between six and eight times stronger than his raw attributes would suggest. And Elijah didn’t even think he’d fully acclimated to his attributes yet. He was still hampered by the mindset of human limitations, which held him back from reaching his true potential. Going forward, he needed to push that attitude aside. A difficult task, but one he deemed necessary unless he wanted to cripple his capabilities.

All of that went through his mind as he trekked back to the cherry tree, which was nearly thirty miles away. Fortunately, the trees were spaced far enough apart that he didn’t need to alter his route, and what’s more, some of the awkwardness of carrying such large burdens was mitigated by his command of the vines on his arms and shoulders. He wrapped them around the blocks, stabilizing them.

Like that, he made his way back, covering the ground in a little over an hour. Once he reached the right area – pointedly a little less than a hundred yards from the fox – he deposited his haul, shifted back into his human form, and approached the tree. When he drew near, he saw that a veritable horde of kits were busy devouring the bodies of the grimlings killed by the vixen.

Elijah ignored the gruesome sight, then fed another grove fruit to the fox. She was a bit more eager this time around – or that was how Elijah interpreted the couple of quick flicks of her tails – which he thought showed that his efforts were working.

Over the rest of the day, Elijah made thirteen more trips to his makeshift quarry, carrying the rest of the stone blocks back to the site he intended for his dolmen. However, when he made the final trip, he returned to find a single grimling waiting for him.

The creature was plainly ancient, and he wore an elaborate headdress featuring a wolf’s skull. His open vest was made of small bones that had been stitched together by animal sinew, and his pants were inexpertly sewn from patched hides. A staff topped with feathers and dangling bones completed the image.

Elijah deposited his stone blocks.

“What do you want?” he asked as the huge hunks of stone thudded to the ground.

“Not true form. Disrespect. Not good start.”

After a moment, Elijah shifted back to his human shape. He was wary, but he was not afraid, and for three reasons. First, the ancient grimling was strong, but not nearly as powerful as him. That was obvious from the way the ethera shifted around him. Second, he’d come alone. If he intended to attack, he’d have brought plenty of friends along.

But most of all, Elijah could sense that the vixen was watching. If things went sideways, he had no questions about whose side she would take.

“There. This is me. What do you want?”

“Why you here? Fight?”

Elijah shook his head. “Not really my intention,” he admitted. “Do you know of the human settlement?”

“Yes. Bad. Not welcome.”

“Well, I’m here to take them away,” Elijah stated. “Once I build a stone ring here, I’m going to evacuate them. They won’t bother you anymore.”

“No bother. Kill easy. No more problem.”

“If you attack them or harm them in any way, I’m going to respond. That won’t be good for you,” Elijah said.

The grimling took a step back at Elijah’s tone. He’d been trying to get past his propensity to threaten people, but sometimes, it was warranted. And he wanted to make it absolutely clear that there would be consequences if the grimlings chose to attack the people of Forest Hills.

“They stay away. No problem.”

Elijah said, “I’m going to have to bring them here sometime soon. That means cutting through the forest. Will you or your people attack them?”

“Yes. Intruder bad.”

“Is there anything I can do to stop that?” Elijah asked. He really didn’t want to go to war with them.

“You take away? No more human?”

“Not from this settlement,” Elijah answered. “I can’t say anything about people that might wander in later.”

“Take away. Safe passage. No more human. Grimling free.”

Then, without another word, the ancient grimling turned and strode away. That left Elijah with a little more faith in the world. Maybe he didn’t always have to resort to violence to get what he wanted.

With that in mind, he turned his attention to the blocks and began to plan his new dolmen. Meanwhile, a half-dozen white kits frolicked in his direction. Most of their muzzles were covered in the blood of grimlings.

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