Lands of hope

“You have done something useful,” Marda said to the father and son after their story about what happened in the city of krakalevn and after viewing the plans of that city. “Krakaleven’s reality control is stronger than ours because they don’t do spells with bare feet. They’re helped by titanic artifacts, pyramid houses. Either they act as a lens, or even a substitute for constant concentration.” “Definitely,” Surt said. “If we didn’t waste time on rash moves, but gathered forces capable of holding the city after the capture, these buildings would belong to us. Now we only know where they are and what functions they perform.” “There’s a chance of reproducing them.” said architect Varlad, staying at Marda’s side. “Reality control is largely based on faith and confidence in result, and prayers of Light ones are more often heard in temples. Not because the Highest is deaf in other places, but because it’s easier for the Light ones to tune in there”. Zorath glanced sideways at him. Varlad enjoyed great respect from ordinary dragons. At the same time, Amenemhat was afraid of him, Surt did not like him, and Namira had almost dragged him to bed. “It’s just because Light ones don’t adjust anywhere else?” Marda smiled. However, several organized wills are better than one. At least the krakalevns will get scared and start doing stupid things when they see us building our own pyramids.” “I was able to study the buildings briefly while Namira was tinkering with the defenses. I don’t think we’ll need anything more than that, unless we have our best technomage,” Surt looked at Varlad, “won’t figure out how to make it work. I’ll give him the necessary information.” “Krakalevns live on the same planet as we do, with the same physics and magic,” Varlad was sure of himself. “If we could capture one of their priests, then…” “The darkness has taken nav,” Zorath reminded him. Surt cleared his throat. “In this case, I should talk to her”, reacted Varlad. “This knowledge is necessary, vital. In any case, so far krakalevns aren’t defeating us, but at least they are resisting us skilfully.” “She will only tell you anything on her terms, with you and all the rest of your knowledge will come under her control,” Marda closed her eyes wearily, but Varlad only perked up. “By my will, she’ll be wiser and less quarrelsome. If she knows what I know…” Surt put a paw on his son’s wing. “So we have entered an era when dragons are willing to sell everything, including their own will, for power and knowledge.” Zorath sighed and said something that made his father proud. “If they had that will.”

* * *

The war against krakalevns became positional. Inland advance of dragons was accompanied by such losses that Amenemhat thought it best to hold and expand the areas they had already captured. On the other hand, Darkness warned the winged ones not to take active action. She didn’t doubt the victory, but recommended not to disturb the navs unnecessarily, as krakalevns had much more patrons than the Dark ones had initially believed. It was possible to win in this situation with magic and weapons alone, but the price would be too high. The rapid construction of buildings has already been worked out by dragon magicians to perfection, so they boldly began to build deceptive pyramids. Stone blocks were extracted by molecular telekinesis directly from the parent rock of the basements, stacked in rows and fused together by accelerated diffusion. In imitation of the strange inscriptions on the original monuments, the dragons squeezed out carvings and stuck out bas-reliefs of symbols of their own writing. These “fake” pyramids served several purposes at once: in addition to providing a better understanding of the magical architecture and methods of reality control, they also clearly irritated the natives, forcing them to repeatedly attack the builders. Fortunately, dragons suffered very little damage in this case, because they were well aware of how much the enemy would be interested in these buildings, and they took serious defensive measures. Zorath no longer wasted time on exersizes — he had enough to worry about defending his village, shooting krakalevns from behind his shield, while talking to his peers along the way — he was too bored to do simple monotonous work, which wasn’t too tiring thanks to the constant replenishment of strength with the help of the souls of opponents. “How did you get into that city?” asked him Nammu. “Did the Darkness help?” “My father just flew in to talk,” Zorath said, grimacing at the incompetence of these fools. “For some reason, even Amenemhat didn’t think of that option, and Darkness has no head at all, so I can’t blame her.” “I didn’t ask why, but how!” Nammu wasn’t going to let go of the dragon that easily. “That krakalevn town had murder shield or dome or something!” She stopped firing, watching as the remaining krakalevns hurried from the battlefield. “We went to the ridge of that dome and sat there with our wings spread out. Several krakalevns came out to us, and my father telepated them, because he didn’t know their language”, Zorath didn’t stop shooting, this time at random, and once knocked out an invisible enemy, who immediately appeared and fell to the ground strewn with chitinous corpses. “That’s enough!” another scaly dragon, Ingur — older than the others and therefore assuming a kind of command — fired a magic shot at Zorath. “Quit spending souls, we already going to a loss. The rest will be killed by the passive shield.” “What did Surt telepated them?” Nammu continued to wonder. Zorath licked the burn on his shoulder, some of Ingur’s energy ate through his defenses. “I don’t know.” “Talking to the lifereapers is disrespectful!” Ingur nodded to his female friend, a young dragon, but rumored to have already tasted a male. “While your father was making peace with our enemies, real warriors are taking their lives!” “It didn’t work out too well anyway, we missed the ambush,” the horned cub said with a disappointed sigh. “If Surt was planning to take the city for good at all,” Ingur added, after a moment’s thought, " instead of persuading krakalevn to leave it for a while to do something mean to Darkness.” Zorath glanced briefly at the other dragons' reactions and decided not to respond to this blatant accusation. The justifier is always guilty. “Darkness might have guessed Surt’s actions, if that was the way to judge it,” Nammu said, not trying to defend Zorath, just voicing her own thoughts. “And she didn’t notice nav, so she isn’t all-knowing, as she pretends.” “Darkness, like any religionist,” Ingur chuckled to himself when he inadvertently used the term used by demiurge Radver, “won’t perform worthwhile miracles without accepting donations. But so far, Amenemhat hadn’t paid her anything. Whoever was the first to think of leaving vile Hardol is no fool in this line. For Darkness, taking over the city for an hour isn’t a job well done, but what ardinians call a “trial version” — giving the customer a chance to play for free, and then taking it away so that he pays for the purchase, having tasted its benefits.” “The city was “given to play” by my father, not by Darkness, no matter who said what.” Said Zorath. “The main thing is that neither Surt nor the Darkness held it back,” Nammu pestered, also preparing to fly. “And as for winning, I heard we’ll soon drive them off our land!” Zorath didn’t reply. He’d heard a few things, too, mostly from his father. The pyramids, which the dragons built as if only to deceive the krakalevns, actually had some differences in their internal and external arrangement: Surt tried to figure out how to make them work. And Darkness had plans for how to get rid of these Harvesters of Lifes…