The rest of the Sea Drake’s body sank to the floor, twitching, and its tail slid out of the column of water to land on the tile with a meaty slap.
The stranger’s eyes were still shut. He lowered his bloody hammer to the floor and, without a word, started dragging it off again.
Orthos shook himself like a dog, spraying yet more blood everywhere, and laughed freely. “You hit with the strength of a dragon! What is your name, human?”
The green-horned man stopped. He wiped blood from his eyes with a thumb, though he didn’t bother cleaning the rest of his face. “Ziel,” he said.
Then he kept walking.
“Ziel,” Orthos said to his back. “I will remember you.” He continued chuckling as he walked past the body of the Diamondscale Sea Drake, taking a bite of its meat as he passed. He was still chewing when he walked into the column of water, washing himself off.
Dross, keeping his voice to a whisper, spoke as soon as Ziel was out of earshot. “Ziel of the Wasteland. We’re not exactly flush with records about him, sorry to say, but there are plenty of rumors. I can tell you he’s under the Beast King’s protection, and you know what that means.”
“I don’t,” Lindon said. He was still in awe at what Ziel had done with a single blow from his Enforcer technique. And he was supposed to be on a level with Ekeri.
“The Beast King,” Dross said, as though it was something obvious. “He’s been a legend for centuries. A crippled boy who befriended some ancient sacred beasts and eventually rose to the level of a Herald. He’s one of the guardians who stands in the Wasteland between Akura territory and the land of the dragons, protecting human civilization. Or so they say. Without him and others like him, the Blackflame Empire would be a war-torn desert.”
“So what does it mean that Ziel is under his protection?”
“The Beast King spends all his time in a wasteland of endless battle. He cares about nothing but his war. If he’s taken on a human, then that means he thinks this kid will be a critical weapon against the dragons. Not too surprising, seeing how he dealt with that Diamondscale. Maybe that was a secret anti-dragon technique.”
“A dragon hunter,” Lindon mused aloud. It sounded exciting, like the myths he’d heard as a child, but he had trouble putting the pieces together. Ziel hadn’t turned on Orthos, though Orthos was clearly using the power of a dragon. And he hadn’t showed any hostility toward Ekeri in the portal room, nor had he followed her when she left.
He didn’t act like someone whose sole purpose in life was a war against dragonkind.
Orthos emerged from the water clean and radiating satisfaction. However, his soul told a different story: the battle had scarred him further, his spirit throbbing with deep pain.
“Not that this will surprise you,” Dross said, “but Ziel headed in the direction of the Spirit Well. Just follow the bloody footsteps.”
Those footsteps led past shelf after shelf of dream tablets, some of which had gone dark or flickered with age, but most of which shone brightly. After a few minutes, they reached a vast gray wall, featureless but for a keyhole identical to the one in the other facility.
The door must once have been hidden, but now it was shattered, revealing another blue hallway. Rubble had been sprayed all over the downward-sloping floor, almost as though someone had smashed their way in with a hammer.
“Ah, why don’t you hold up for a moment?” Dross said as Lindon was about to enter. Ziel’s footsteps led into the hall, and Lindon had intended to follow them.
“I don’t know much about how these facilities were constructed, but I can tell you that they’re not supposed to be something that a Truegold can break.” Dross slid out of his gem, drifting across the space as a floating purple cloud of light and phantom gears. “If we’re not dealing with a Gold, but a Sage in disguise, that would be...less than ideal.”
Orthos kept walking, crunching over the pebbles in the doorway. Clearly, he didn’t intend to cower at the entrance.
Lindon stopped. He hadn’t done anything to antagonize the stranger, but it still seemed prudent to let Dross investigate first.
After sinking himself into the keyhole, Dross let out a sound imitating a breath of relief and floated back to Lindon. “We’re okay! False alarm! The protective scripts in this wall were already failing. Good thing that didn’t happen back in the Dream Well facility, eh? That dragon-girl could have just blasted her way in to us.”
Lindon shivered. His hand moved unconsciously to the still-healing wound on his chest.
“Now all we have to worry about is the facility crashing down around us,” Dross said brightly. “Should be several weeks before that happens, though. We can be fairly certain. At least...let’s say sixty percent.”
This storage facility was much smaller than the one in the other habitat. It only had four rooms besides the one at the end of the hall, where Lindon soon saw Orthos drinking deeply from a shining blue well.
Though nothing had happened to the turtle, Lindon still entered hesitantly, looking around for Ziel. His footsteps led to the corner, where he sat with his back against the wall and his hammer propped next to him. He sat with arms on his knees, saying nothing.
Lindon bowed to him over a salute. “Ziel of the Wasteland, this one thanks you for your protection.”
Ziel waved a hand. He was staring at the floor as though watching a memory.
“We humbly request your permission to drink from the well, if you don’t mind.”
The Truegold, still stained in blood, looked to the well and then raised weary eyes to Lindon. “Plenty to go around,” he said.
It was true. The Spirit Well was at least ten times bigger than the Dream Well, and looked more like a pond than what Lindon would call a well.
“Gratitude,” Lindon said. “We will try not to bother you more than necessary.”
Ziel stared at the floor again.
The well gave off a blue glow brighter than the hallway outside, and hazy purple shapes drifted through the air above it.
At first, he thought they were constructs meant to defend or inspect the place, but they looked vaguely like ghostly animals. Fish swam in schools with spirits like butterflies and some like snakes. They were all pale pink or purple with no fine details, and they all pulsed slightly as though on the verge of shifting shape.
Little Blue pushed out of his pocket and cheeped at the sight.
“Sylvan Dreamseeds,” Dross explained. “Just like Riverseeds are pure spirits that are born in areas with a strong balance between water and life aura, these little guys are born under the influence of dream aura. From the dream tablets, you see. The library and the Well are here purely to create the right conditions for their birth. Right now they’re weak. Not much better than pure madra acting like dream madra. They only wish they could hold all the memories I can.”
He darted aggressively at the nearest Dreamseed, which ignored him, drifting through the air like a frozen bird.
As interesting as the Dreamseeds were, it was the Spirit Well that held Lindon’s attention. He dipped both cupped hands into the water and lifted them to his lips.
While the Dream Well had carried a slight mineral taste, this water was sweet. The mouthful went down easily, and he cycled its power to his pure core.
The effect was instantaneous. His core crackled with lightning, reminding him of the orus spirit-fruit Lindon had consumed back in Sacred Valley. Only this was a hundred times more powerful. It felt like a whirlpool had formed in his core, refining his madra with every revolution. It was almost like his madra was cycling itself.