Mana Mirror: Chapter Thirty Seven (Patreon)

My breath caught as I ran my eyes over him one more time. A few patches of green that I’d thought were leaves… Weren’t.

Oh, sure, he still had ivy and other plants trailing through his hair and draping over his skin in a few places. But behind his ears, and in the center of his chest, some of what I’d mistaken for leaves?

Were scales.

Hurriedly, I ran my mana senses over him. It was a bit rude, but I had to confirm if what I was thinking was true or not. Oddly, the man didn’t seem to mind, instead probing me with his own senses.

The first sensation I got was that of a blazing torch of power, compared to the bright candleflame of power that I’d managed to gather. He was probably a Spellbinder, and even though it felt like he’d only recently advanced, his power was solidly built. In a head to head contest against Ed, I’d have to give it to the man in front of me.

His blend of mana was complex, integrating large amounts of what felt almost like life mana, but it had so many other aspects that it was hard for me to say with any certainty. I’d only felt a mana composition this complex once before.

My hand ran over the draconic enchanted ring in my pocket.

“Dragon?” I asked, my voice half caught in my throat.

He studied me, and in the faintly shimmering light of my peacepyre, I could see him lift one eyebrow.

“Human?” he asked, his baritone voice full of a mirthful amusement.

I closed my eyes and took a breath to steady myself, then opened them.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was caught by surprise.”

I gestured to the stump across from me.

“Please, take a seat. Would you like something to eat? Let’s see, I have egg custard filled tarts, bean buns, pork buns, jam filled croissants…”

He took a seat across from me and tilted his head.

“Pork buns? How would a rabbit be made of pork? Or beans?”

I froze for a second, not sure how to respond to that. I glanced at the dragon, and I caught the faintest hint of an amused sparkle in his eyes.

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you?” I asked.

“I am,” he said with a laugh. “I grew up in the city of Teffordshire.”

I tried to picture a mental map in my head. I knew that was one of the larger cities in Mossford, and I was… pretty sure it was to the south. Not too far from here.

“My name is Malachi,” I said, laughing with him. “I’m from the capital.”

“Ivy,” he said. “May I have a pork bun?”

I handed one over, and he took a bite, leaning back some and crossing his legs on the stump.

“So, Malachi. Why are you here?” He said it casually, but the way his eyes studied me, I was certain my response would change a lot on how he reacted to me.

“When I first picked up the mission, I figured I’d just do it to get a good paycheck,” I admitted. “But given that you’re here, far from home, and the fact that you’re presumably the one who’s been keeping people out, I want to hear your side of the story. And I want to know why you spoke to me.”

“You were the first to reach out to the power of the world and hear its heartbe–”

“Spare me,” I said. “You’re a dragon, and I get that your mana is a lot more natural than mine, but acting all mystical and druidic won’t work. I guarantee that some of the other members of the Watches who came out here tried to speak to the forest.”

He gave me an amused look and took another bite of the pork bun.

“You’re right. Of course a few of them did, and I spoke to them, and explained why they had to leave. But what do you want?”

“A solution,” I said.

“Being vague doesn’t help your case,” he said seriously.

“I’m not being vague. I don’t know the details. If I could make a perfect solution, I’d have it so that the tree farming doesn’t damage the natural mana flows in the area, and I still got paid. What do you want? Why are you here, so far from home? Why did you speak to me, as opposed to others?”

“I’ll start with the last one, since it’s the easiest to understand. You’ve got a draconic enchanted ring built for humans in your pocket, and that made me curious. Two other people have tried to speak to the forest, but they did elaborate ceremonies that were just as much superstition as they were magic. You just plopped down and announced you wanted to talk, which was rather bold of you and caught my interest. And…”

He shrugged.

“I’m getting tired. I’ve been here for almost four months, and people just keep coming. I figured that Jacobs Davies would let try for a few weeks, then give up. I mean, the request has spread all the way to the capital now.”

I fished the ring out of my pocket and tossed it into the air, then caught it.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know what this does,” I said, holding it up to the light of the peacepyre. “I got it from a troll cave after a… friend? And I knocked the troll out.”

“Really?” he asked. “May I see it?”

I almost didn’t pass it over, but I eventually decided that I was already in deep enough that if he decided to steal it, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him, and so I passed it over.

He examined it for a few moments, then passed it back to me.

“Cavern Dragon magic,” he said. “I’m not sure what it does, but it’s designed to imbue a permanent effect to the wearer, like an imbued spell does. It shouldn’t be harmful to you. It’s also old. Not ancient, but the magic has gotten rusty from disuse, though it should eventually fix itself. It’s been sitting there for… Twelve years or so?”

“You can tell all that from just holding it?” I asked, slipping the ring onto my right index finger.

There was a faint tingle in my mana-garden, but it was incredibly faint. I closed my eyes, chasing down the elusive feeling. It seemed to be coming somewhat more powerfully from my death mana, but I wasn’t even sure if it was, or if I was just deceiving myself.

“Dragons have better mana senses than humans,” Ivy said, though I barely heard him, since I was focused on my mana-garden.

I opened my eyes and refocused on him.

“Alright, I buy why you approached me. But let’s talk about the rest.”

He finished his pork bun and rose.

“Walk with me?”

I rose and slung my briefcase over one shoulder, the leather strap creaking some as I did. I gave it a stern look before I followed.

We walked through the trees, and I felt something strange tingling at my senses. We were moving faster than we should have been able to, though I didn’t understand how exactly we were doing that, since the world wasn’t blurring around us.

I shuddered. Draconic magic was strange stuff.

“I was sent here by my mother,” Ivy said. “She’s what you’d call an Arcanist, back home in Teffordshire. She sensed the disruptions, and sent me out here to fix it. I figured that if I could stop Jacobs from being able to get home, and make it hard for him to run his business, he’d stop.”

“That hasn’t worked,” I said. “But, and I mean this… I… No offense, but you didn’t seem to care much about ceremony. He’s keeping it within legal limits. I don’t like what he’s doing, but why would your mother notice?”

“If this was a normal forest, like Trollstone, I’d agree with you,” he said. “But the trouble is, this isn’t a normal forest.”

I waited for an explanation, but the strange magic around us retracted back into Ivy, and we stepped into a clearing.

It was lush and bright, despite how late it was in the evening, and I abruptly realized the glow was leaking out of the earth itself. The trees were a verdant green, but there was spots of purples, pinks, yellows, and other colored flowers mixed throughout, leading to a riot of color.

And the mana…

At first, I thought it was gushing out of the ground, but I abruptly realized that wasn’t quite right. It was pouring into the clearing, yes, but it wasn’t being directed up. It was funneling into something.

Ivy turned and focused on me.

Ivy stepped into the clearing and shifted leaves to reveal a large egg. It was covered in what looked like green scales, and a faint green glow throbbed from the inside.

“What is that?” I asked.

He laid his hand on the egg’s smooth surface.

“This is a terragon egg.”

“Is that like an estragon?” I asked.

“Far stronger,” he said. “Many human myths about dragons are about terragons. Once it hatches, it will be powerful enough to be able to defend itself, but terragon eggs are incredibly powerful components. Mother’s been keeping an eye on this one for almost a decade now.”

“Why not tell the watch?” I asked.

“She will, once it hatches, but like I said, the eggs are valuable. Old Man Davies knew about it, and his daughter may have.”

A sickening feeling formed in the pit of my stomach.

“It seems like the options are to either tell Jacobs Davies about this, and watch him try to poach it, or tell the watch, force him to back off, but risk the information leaking, and someone poaching it anyways. Why tell me, though?”

“You’re not acting purely for the money. Of the other two who spoke to me, I told one of them, though not that it was a terragon egg. I simply told him about the dryad grove that he was beginning to encroach on.”

He glanced at me.

“And before you ask, yes, Davies is aware of the grove. That’s not a secret, like the egg. He’s sure to steer clear of their territory and making sure to only cut down mindless trees, but the lumber operation he’s running is still damaging the egg’s growth.”

I shifted from foot to foot.

“Can you hide the egg from him?”

“I am hiding the egg, but I can only do that while I’m within the forest.”

“What about setting up an enchantment, so you can leave?” I asked.

“I don’t know anything about enchanting,” he said. “My father may be able to, but then…”

Ivy sighed and ran a hand through his long hair.

“This is something like a coming-of-age ceremony. I’m given a difficult task to solve on my own. I can recruit people, but I don’t want to be running back to my mother’s skirts, or relying on someone more powerful than I am. That’s… Another reason I’m speaking to you, and keeping my efforts at first and second gate. I can’t draw a spellbinder into this.”

“Hmm,” I said. I didn’t necessarily agree with his philosophy – after all, a spell engineer might have no power at all, but still come up with a spell designed to perfectly solve this exact situation – but I wasn’t going to contradict his coming-of-age ceremony. I didn’t know if it was a Teffordshire thing, a dragon thing, or even just his family, but it felt rude regardless.

But more than that… The way he was talking about not being able to draw a spellbinder into this, but coming forwards to speak to me as his plans had failed and he was running low on options.

“You have a plan, don’t you?” I asked. “One that requires my help. Something to help stop the deforestation and protect the egg, all in one fell swoop?”

Ivy’s grin was fierce, and I took the opportunity to look at his teeth. They were slightly inhuman, but nowhere near as sharp or triangular as Kene’s were. That scratched dragon off of the list of things that Kene may be, though in truth, the moment I’d started to feel draconic mana I’d begun to suspect Kene couldn’t be one.

“Here’s the plan…” Ivy said.