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The Order of the Black Foot

Arc 1, Chapter 2

Sponsored by GlynWolf

By Draconicon

Time passed differently in Morphus. In, not on, Draconicon had decided; the world that described itself as a game was meant to be dwelt in, not a planet or a plane to live on. But time moved differently here, something that he noticed by stepping out of the kobold cave and watching the sky. It had taken a total of thirty minutes for the sun to go all the way around the sky and the moon to come up, which meant that the world was on an exaggerated sense of time passing. Yet, nothing moved faster, the plants did not reflect the lesser amount of time of sunlight, and the world itself seemed as normal as one could want.

Draconicon watched for the first 'day' for any further adventurers once he was sure that Harendra would be alright on his own. The newly freed kobold seemed confused, more than anything, and while he had been willing to stay with the dragon, the little guy seemed more willing to be on his own, too. The other kobolds showed no signs of recognizing him, and were more willing to follow strange, pre-determined routines rather than doing anything of their own accord.

For that matter, only Harendra seemed to notice that he was there. The others seemed, if anything, to be unaware of him, as if he didn't exist.

Despite finding it strange, he was willing enough to let it be. Until he understood the magic of Morphus, he didn't want to risk taking things further than he already had. That might trip something that he couldn't take back, and that, in turn, might lead to some disaster that he wasn't ready for.

Two days passed, and he left the cave. There was a moment of darkness, his vision gone, until everything opened up before him again. Spreading out, appearing bit by bit, the stuff close to him translating into vision first before the things further out. He cocked his head to the side as it took nearly a minute for the things at the edge of the horizon to fully appear, shaking his head slowly.

Someone could use that time to hurt me...I have to be ready for that.

Still shaking off the disorienting feeling of several days passing in the space of a few hours, Draconicon followed the river down from the mountain cave. The blackened water served as a guide as much as the road did, and as expected, it led right down to the village beneath the brown banner with the sawblade. That same motto, 'Build and Rise', floated over it, but he couldn't imagine that that was the name of the village. He shook his head, following the river further down.

It didn't take long before someone noticed him. He expected that. What he didn't expect was the arrow shooting through the air to say hello.

He felt something happening, a tingle, a rattle, before it settled. An awareness of the arrow flying towards him, a split second to react. Out of habit, he snapped his fingers -

But there was no reaction. No magic. None of the usual barriers or black fire burning through the projectile before it could reach him. Nothing.

The moment passed, and the arrow hit him. Not hard enough to cut, but hard enough to sting. He stumbled backwards half a pace, looking at the slight nick in his robe and the chip on the scales under it. Draconicon shook his head, pulling at the fabric a bit.

Right...the magic doesn't work the same here. I have to use their spells, not mine...

He heard the 'thwip' of another arrow being loosed. This time, he was ready. He snapped his fingers, a barrier of blades appearing before him, spinning, swirling, cutting through the air. The arrow itself was sliced and diced to pieces, and through the clinging and clanging of the blades, he heard his attackers talking.

"Holy shit."

"I thought this was a training area! Low level shit."

"Thought wrong, man, thought wrong."

"Maybe they were telling the truth."

"Maybe it's an event. Let's get the rest of the Guild."

As they talked, Draconicon had made his way around the barrier. The flashy display was not what he expected, but it was very good at holding attention. Considering the meager cover that the forest at the base of the mountain offered, it didn't take long to find the archers and their companions. Two maned wolves, a lioness, and a jackal waited, with the lioness and the jackal being the ones that had bothered with archery. The other two - one a wizard, from the robe, and the other looking like a thief - were still waiting, crouched behind some bushes. They all were, for that matter, staring at the barrier as if waiting for him to come out from behind it.

...Do they really think that I'm that stupid? he wondered.

"I told you that there was something strong around here," the lioness muttered. "Did you think we'd get taken out by something low-level?"

"Hey, accidents happen, and - well, we just thought you were embarrassed," the wizard said, rubbing the back of his head. "But holy shit..."

"Do you think that he's still waiting over there?" the jackal asked. "We might be able to sneak around, flank him."

"They've never fixed that glitch," the thief said. "I think we can get a few sneak attacks in. He's probably not that high a challenge rating, least if he's an event."

None of that meant anything to the dragon. All that he understood was that they were of the opinion that he wasn't really a person, and that they were free to take him down. But the fact that the lioness was still here...

Yes, it was the same one that he had ended a few 'days' ago, when she had been part of the attack on the kobold cave. There was no doubt in his mind. She had the same slice of white fur across one eye, almost like a scar.

Hmmm, so she told a story...and the others didn't believe her.

"Alright, alright. Here's the plan," the jackal said. "Me and Swesa, we'll head around to the right. Amarantha, you take the wizard and go around the other side, and -"

"Excuse me...but I think that you've forgotten something."

Draconicon would have smiled if it wasn't for the fact that they all jumped in actual surprise. The two maned wolves, the lioness - Amarantha, apparently - and the jackal turned slowly to face him. The black dragon lifted his hand, curling the power of his magic around it. The bars in the corner of his vision told him that he still had an abundance of magic points to use, and the little 'tink' of the arrow earlier hadn't even shifted his health bar in the slightest. He looked from one to the other before him, shaking his head.

"Did you really think I would just wait for you?" he asked.

"Oh, fuck...oh fuck, it's got moves," the wizard muttered.

"One of you, do something," the jackal hissed. "Before it reaches the end of its -"

The lioness had come back, and so had the kobold. Draconicon felt no compunctions about testing it for the jackal. He snapped his fingers, and an immolating black flame consumed the archer before he could finish his sentence. Nothing was left, not even ashes.

The rest of the group blinked, their eyes wide as they looked at the spot where their companion had disappeared, and then slowly looked back at him.

"You...that's against..." The wizard shook his head, slowly backing away. "This isn't how it's supposed to work..."

"I'm not aware of any rules telling me otherwise," Draconicon said. "Now...if you're done trying to kill me -"

The wizard ran. He allowed that. The other maned wolf, however, lunged for him, daggers out.

He didn't allow that.

When the fires cleared, all that was left was the lioness. Amarantha looked up at him, then down at the burn spots on either side. She was smart; she tossed her weapons to the sides, keeping her hands clear of anything that looked like a threat. The dragon nodded.

"You get the picture?"

"You can kill me anytime you want. I don't know what you are, but you're high-level, and there's no chance in hell that you're just another dumb event. Either you're something that the game developers threw in to really fuck with the players - maybe even some corporation trying to wipe out some of us - or you're some kind of bug in the system. Either way, it's not good for me."

"..."

"So, what do you want?"

"I think...an explanation."

Draconicon leaned back against one of the trees, crossing one arm over the other. Now that he had a chance to actually study the feline before him, he could see that there was a difference between her and the kobolds. There had been something rough about all of them, even Harendra - though that one had been slightly more detailed than the others when he left - but she looked more...present. Almost like she was real, and they were not. It was something to the vibrancy, the details she had. It was strange.

But more to the point, she was talking. Talking...while distracted, he realized as her eyes were off to the side, as if looking in the corner of her eye. He waved his hand, bringing up the same menu as he had done for himself and the kobolds.

Ignoring her stats, he saw that she had a thing called a 'friends list,' and she had it open, chatting. Letters scrawled across the screen, messages sent, asking people on the list for help.

Telepathy, hmm? Let's say...no.

Draconicon found a checkmark that seemed to allow the chatter, and he tapped it. It disappeared, and as it did, the text boxes grayed out. Amarantha's eyes went wider.

"What - how..."

"I want to talk to you. Not to everyone that you're trying to call over."

"...They'll come anyway. We're all part of a Guild. That's what we do."

"Were they part of your Guild?" he asked, pointing to the burn marks that were already fading from the ground.

"...Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"...You're not just a bug, are you? Are you...are you another player?"

"Not a willing one," he muttered, looking up at the sky. It seemed that this was going to be another cosmic joke, at this rate. He did seem to stumble into places that didn't exactly welcome him, and more to the point, were outright hostile. Shaking his head, he brought his gaze back down. "I want an explanation."

"...About what?"

"About everything you just said. Corporations. These...events, levels, the Guilds. Everything that you've mentioned, because I have no idea what you're talking about."

"...You can't be serious."

"I'm entirely serious."

"But...but that's...Everyone knows about this. It's how -"

Draconicon held up a finger, hearing something whistling further in the trees. No, not whistling. Whirring, stirring, almost shrieking. Lights appeared in the distance. He cocked his head to the side, and then glanced at her.

"I think that you were right about your Guild friends. They're coming."

"W-well, that's good. We can get rid of you."

"Hmm...I don't think it'll be that simple."

"We have numbers on our side."

"...Heh. Let me test something."

He'd been curious about his hardiness here ever since he had seen the stats that the kobolds had. Seeing that Amarantha's attributes were in the high teens to the low twenties confirmed that his stats were well past overpowered, though that might only be for this area. But there were other things, little variables that he wanted to understand...and he had time.

Draconicon cast aside his robe, leaving himself naked in front of the lioness. Her cheeks burned as she looked up and away. She was trying to turn some feature - 18+ Mode - off, but he grayed that out, too. She would see this, and nothing less.

"Now...Hurt me."

"...What?" she asked, blinking.

"Take your bow, and shoot me."

"But...why?"

"I want to test something. Use whatever arrow you want. Any attack you wish. I want to see how it feels."

As if believing that this was nothing more than a trick - something that he couldn't entirely blame her for - Amarantha reached for the bow. She pulled it from the ground, hesitated, then dragged an arrow from her quiver. It shimmered in her hand, turning electrical at the tip as she drew it. The lioness aimed for him, hesitated for a second longer, then - as if thinking that he would run - she loosed it.

The arrow crackled, and he felt the same tingle-rattle that he had felt when someone had shot at him before. This time, he let it pass, almost like he was choosing to ignore the benefits that came from it.

The arrow sped up and hit him in the chest. The sparking head felt like it was trying to bury itself through his scales, the arrow itself spinning and grinding against him. Oh, it stung, and the lightning lashed across him like a nest of snakes biting at every inch that they could reach. It burned, it ached...

But it did almost nothing. He looked down at the health bar, and the arrow had chipped away perhaps three points. No more than that, and certainly not enough to make a dent in the overall size of it.

When he looked back up, the lioness had all but fallen on her ass. She stumbled backwards two paces, fumbling for the tree behind her for balance. Her eyes looked like they were about to fall out of her head.

"How...that...that was a slayer arrow...What are you?"

"Complicated. Perhaps a little too complicated."

It was confirmation that his stats were higher than what the game was immediately prepared to deal with. There were ways that he exceeded those around him, which meant that there was a greater likelihood that he could handle those around him. Perhaps better than they were ready for.

But that also meant that he had given himself more power than he had anticipated. He'd need to take some time to build on that, examine what the actual difference between him and the 'players' - and their Guilds - actually was. Until then, it was better not to let them guess what his limits were. Better that he knew it before they did.

"For now, take care...and we will talk again, hopefully without so many guests next time around."

Draconicon snapped his fingers again, and disappeared.

The cavern of the kobolds wasn't safe. Once Amarantha was taken seriously by the rest of the Guild, they would mount an assault and clear the place out while looking for him. While he might be able to fight them, Draconicon was still careful to keep that as a 'might,' not a definite. It was best kept for emergencies and not relied on.

Which meant that it was time to move the kobolds. Just in case.

He went through the lot of them, removing the 'Behavior Routine' one by one. Each time that he removed it, the kobold in question stiffened, shivered, and then slumped back down, looking around as if with fresh eyes. Dumb eyes, but fresh ones, nonetheless. He named them, too, following the pattern that he'd started with Harendra.

He was almost ready to take the spell to the shaman when Harendra himself came down and tapped the dragon's arm. It was the first independent action that the kobold had taken, and it actually surprised him. He looked down, his head cocked to the side.

"Yes?" Draconicon asked.

"What are we doing?" Harendra asked, his voice...careful, for lack of a better word, neutral and spaced out artificially equally. "What is this?"

"We're moving."

"Moving where?"

"To a different cave."

"This is our cave. We are not allowed."

"You're with me. Trust me, you're allowed," he muttered.

"...You are a dragon."

"Yes, I am," he said, not paying as much attention as he opened the shaman's menu. "Does that matter?"

"I am...a kobold. Yes?"

"..."

The immediate answer of 'yes' died on his lips as he realized that there was something else going on. He thought back to what Amarantha had said, that this was a game. Games had players, and they had obstacles, things to deal with. Clearly, the 'players' were used to everything that wasn't a player being stupid, and until he proved himself to be something other than a mere dumb obstacle, they had applied that to him, too.

But what if that meant that, as far as the other players were concerned, there was no guiding intelligence for the kobolds? What if they were too dumb to be considered people most of the time?

And what did it mean that one of them was asking if it was a kobold?

Draconicon looked down at Harendra, looking the smaller male over. He had found things, little rocks, bits of leather, and used them to equip himself. He had an armband on the upper left bicep made out of that leather, decorated with little shiny rocks. A shaved bit of rock had been shaped into something like a throwing dagger, something that had to have come from experiments while he was off dealing with the other dangers of the world.

And yet, Harendra still stood as if he was confused about himself, as if he was finding things. The kobold looked away from the dragon, looking at himself, instead. As the smaller male held up his arms, as he looked down at himself and then compared himself to the dragon, Draconicon could just about guess at some of the thoughts that had to be going through his head.

_Am I normal? Or short?

Am I weak? Or is he strong?

Is this me?

What is me?_

Whatever had been behind the kobold's eyes at the start wasn't just something running on someone else's control. It was something that had been deliberately too dumb to think about doing anything but following orders. It didn't know what to do with the world around it at that point.

Draconicon smiled, slowly kneeling down at Harendra's side. He rested his hands on the kobold's shoulders.

"Do you want to be a kobold?"

"...I...don't know what it means."

"Kobold?"

"To want."

"That's a complicated thing." And one that he had never quite managed to figure out for himself. Teaching it to someone else would be a very difficult thing. And perhaps it would be better not to, at least for now. "But being a kobold is not a bad thing. For some of them, it's all that they ever need."

"...I do not understand."

"Do you want me to help you understand?"

"What is want? I need to understand."

"..."

Well, there might be a way to do that. Opening Harendra's character sheet, he opened the attributes once more. There was something slowing him down this time, something that made it more difficult, slower to access the numbers, but it still opened for him. He forced his way down to the intelligence and wisdom stats, and slowly brought them up. From six and six, he bumped them up to seven, then eight, then nine. He saw a flicker of greater intelligence in Harendra's eyes, but kept going. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen -

"Ah!"

The kobold gasped for breath all of a sudden, and Draconicon took his hands back, banishing the sheet again. Harendra gripped his head, holding his hands to the sides of his temples.

"Ah...ah...what...this is...I...I...Mmmph..."

"Calm down. Just ride it out," Draconicon muttered.

"So much...so...nnngh...I...I can..."

"You can think now. That's going to hurt for a minute."

"Nnngh...so much..."

"Pick one and follow it," the dragon said. "Just pick one thing, and follow it through. Then pick another, and follow that one. Take your time. They'll line up. One after another. One after another."

"Mmmmmmmmmmmph..."

Harendra stumbled until the dragon managed to steady him. The other kobolds watched blankly, some with a hint of worry in their eyes, a bit of fear, as if they knew that they should be afraid, but weren't quite smart enough to know of what. He let that go, just supporting this one, letting him work through the new cacophony that had overtaken him.

Eventually, Harendra managed to stop shivering. The kobold looked up, his eyes glinting. No longer so blank, but now with a black dot in the center, he looked at the world with a clear vision, and at the dragon in particular with something approaching reverence. Draconicon shook his head, holding a finger to the kobold's lips before anything could come out.

"I gave you what you needed to think. Now, use that ability. Think clearly about what you will do next."

Harendra nodded, and Draconicon pulled his finger back. The fact that he had a smart kobold - or whatever it was behind the kobold pushing its actions - was a good thing. He could use someone else that was willing and able to help him out. Keeping track of this little clan now that they were not directed by...whatever that thing he kept deleting was would be hard enough on his own.

He approached the shaman, already bringing up its stats. Shaman and chief, apparently, with power to spare for those that would interrupt the cave -

Death stats, really? Really?

This one had been killed no fewer than three hundred times. The only mercy was that, as an enforced obstacle in the game rather than a player, it probably didn't remember that. He hoped that would stay the case when he removed the stupidity.

Taking a deep breath, he picked a name - Jaya - and set to work.

They were most of the way to their new cave when the adventuring players reached the old cave. Draconicon paused in his trek up the mountain, turning to watch as his spells notified him that they'd arrived. Most of the other kobolds, still barely aware of the world around them, continued towards the cave. Harendra, however, stopped to watch with him.

At first, there was nothing. The adventurers went into the cave, and a few seconds ticked by. Then -

Nothing. At least, not visually. Out of the corner of his eye, however, Draconicon saw that the magic that had been invested in the various traps in the cave was slowly coming back, returning to him as the spells fired one by one. He smiled slightly, shaking his head.

That should send a message...

Fire, lightning, demonic summons: he'd placed traps that ran the gamut between all the different elemental damages that he had access to in the cave. He imagined that anyone that had gone in there might have survived one going off, maybe two, but with all of them going off at once, he doubted that anyone would have come through that with their bodies intact.

He wondered, briefly, if he should feel bad about that. The fact that he was 'killing' the players should have been ethically wrong, at the very least, but...well, they were always coming back, resurrecting whenever they died. Did that mean that they felt the pain of death when they went through the whole thing? Amarantha didn't have that sort of reaction when she'd faced him; maybe it was a lessened version of it, or perhaps the lioness had simply become inured to the feeling of dying.

In either case, he'd need to find out, eventually.

"Master?"

The word that he'd been anticipating pulled a sigh from his lips. He turned to Harendra. In the light of day, the kobold looked almost blue-green. Whether that was paint or something else, he wasn't sure, but it wasn't a bad color for him. The kobold adjusted his loincloth, looking up from the dragon's crotch.

"Master...are we going to be safe here?"

"...You've learned a lot already, haven't you?" he asked.

"I...remember some things. I remember..." Harendra reached up, gripping his arm and squeezing it. The same arm that had come off during the fight where they'd first met each other. "This was gone...but it's not now."

"...No. No, it's not. Do you remember...anything else?"

"No. It is too far back. It's...I...I can't remember." Harendra shivered. "I. I've never been an I. This is...new..."

No surprise there. The poor thing had probably been kept under the control of that behavior thing, made to be an 'it' for so long that there was nothing left of the person inside, if there ever was. The intelligence had been enhanced, giving it the tools to work with to start becoming a person, but it would take some time before Harendra was truly himself. The dragon patted him on the shoulder .

"You'll figure it out."

"...You will help?"

"Heh..." Draconicon smiled. Not much choice there. He needed the kobolds, and more to the point, he was responsible for their current weakness. "Of course."

"Thank you, Master."

Pulling the kobold into a gentle embrace, Draconicon was surprised that Harendra returned it after a second. Whether that was the mind behind the kobold learning or something else entirely, he enjoyed it, patting him on the back and sending his little follower into the cave with the other kobolds.

As soon as they were inside, they disappeared from view. It didn't matter that he could see into the cave entrance, didn't matter that they should have still been visible. Something about Morphus meant that once you left one zone behind for another, the worlds disconnected from each other. At least, through one's senses.

Such a strange place.

The whirring whistles that he had heard when the Guild members had started popping in filled the air. He watched as they appeared further down the slopes, just by the old cave. There were more than thirty players there, and more were arriving. He watched as their numbers doubled, tripled in short order, their arguing carrying up the slope.

They had clearly expected to find the kobolds or him there, and were pissed that they hadn't been there. Some shouted about 'bugs', and still others were complaining, shouting about what should have been in there, and that they were going to take this to the higher-ups.

Higher-ups.

Hmmm...now that's a thought...

Every world had its power-brokers, and this would be no exception. If this was a created world - as he had every reason to believe from what the lioness had said and what he had heard so far - then it stood to reason that the creators might still be around. They would be irritated if their world was changed without permission.

And he could pull a lot of changes from where he stood. The players clearly wanted to get back to normal, to hunting monsters, to taking care of the various creatures that they saw as less than them. Perhaps there was a reason for that, perhaps not, but the more trouble that he stirred up, the faster that he'd get the attention of someone responsible, someone that was meant to fix things.

And that meant that he'd get the attention of someone that could actually explain what was going on.

They want monsters? I think I can help them with that...

Harendra was already growing by leaps and bounds. Once he altered the rest of the kobolds, he'd have some intelligent aids to work with, and better, they would know the world better than he did. They would be focused on giving him what he needed, and hopefully, that would get him the information that he needed.

More to the point, they would be far harder to kill. He would be rather curious if the players would be able to handle kobolds that were more their equal.

Harendra appeared out of nowhere, leaving the cave and going from transparent to fully visible in the space of two seconds. Draconicon noted the time that it took to transition, remembering how it felt to leave the cave earlier.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"There are other things in the cave," the kobold said.

"What kind of other things?"

"Gnolls."

"Gnolls?" He cocked his head to the side. "What are...gnolls?"

"Large monsters with pointy teeth, spots, and they cackle a lot."

That sounded somewhat similar to hyenas, in his mind, but he supposed that there was probably something more to them than that.

"How big are they?"

"Up to here, Master," Harendra said, hopping up and tapping the dragon's chest. "Maybe little higher with females."

"Hmm..."

"Need help; they don't want to give up the cave."

No, he supposed they didn't. And that was on him; he had invaded their territory with a bunch of smaller monsters, and that meant that they were probably thinking that this was a hostile takeover.

As much as the monsters could think.

"I'm coming," he muttered, following the kobold back to the cave. "You hurry down, tell Jaya to come back to the entrance. I'll deal with this."

After all, he had made himself more powerful than he realized. He doubted that there was any cave around here that could challenge him. The sheer shock that the adventurers had when they had encountered him, the ease with which he had taken them out, had given him a good idea of just how weak most of the 'monsters' in the area were. Their challenges had been miniscule. It was probably a place better suited for training those that were just starting out than it was for those that wanted a challenge.

With that in mind, was there really anything to worry about?

The End

Summary: Draconicon explores further, learning a bit more about the world, and his status within it. The AI starts to get smarter.

Tags: No Sex, Nudity, Experimenting, World Building, Dragon, Kobold, Lioness, Various Species, Fighting, Intelligence Gain, Uplift, Hacking, Game World, Series, Draconicon,