The brogling fight was something else, but it was hardly something the audience was hungering for. It was the fight between people who were quite strong they were sitting on the edge of their seats for. For his part, Theo planned to do exactly no commentary, instead taking up his post on the sofa and relaxing while infusing his body with potent energies.
“Sure you don’t want to watch this?” Tresk asked. She had a bucket of some fried food on her lap, and was taking bites when she felt like it. “This next match is gonna be a doozy.”
“Just give me the highlights,” Theo said, waving the question away. “I might actually take Alex to the no-go-zone and do some dilation training.”
Tresk turned in her chair, shooting Theo a concerned look. “Think she can handle it?”
“If we can’t trust Alex, what are we doing?” Theo asked. “She’s smart and capable. Every day, she’s getting more competent.”
“And powerful,” Fenian added. “I’d trust that monstrosity with my life.”
“Bah. Fine. You win,” Tresk grumbled, popping another grease-covered bit of fried food in her mouth. “But if you get lost in paper hell, that’s on you.”
Truth was, Theo had a lot of catching up to do. Tresk had discovered the technique while they were within the paper world thanks to the many years they had spent working on potions. She was ahead of him by quite a lot, meaning he had ground to make up if he wanted to get as strong as possible before the next reset. Compared to traditional attributes, infusing one’s self with celestial energy was far more effective for getting stronger. Although the alchemist couldn’t express the exact rate, he knew that for every 1 attribute he got through the system, five minutes of infusing himself with the special energy would produce a similar result.
“Wanna go for a trip?” Theo asked, sending his thoughts into Alex’s mind.
“Where?” the eager dragon-goose asked.
Theo smiled to himself, falling through the cracks in reality, interdicting Alex at the same time. He punched through the weak seal on the paper world, soon landing in something that was quickly becoming a village. Tresk got bored when they were here, and often spent her years building random stuff out of the paper-like material.
“What are we doing here?” Alex asked, spreading her wings wide.
Theo took a good look at his companion before he answered. In some ways, he felt like a father watching his child growing up. Alex had been a gosling not long enough, her downy feathers feeling like soft clouds. Now she was made of mostly scales and claws, but the glint of recognition in her eyes had never faded. Sure, it was much more appealing to have a companion that was soft to pet and honked on occasion, but she wanted to be a dragon. So, a dragon she was.
“I need to siphon more energy from the universe,” Theo said. “So we’ll do a few tests to see if you can run along beside me, so to speak.”
“More like flying,”
Alex said with a puff of fire.Theo’s smile widened as he looked up at the dragon. “Indeed. I’ll be doing Tresk’s meditation technique, focusing on the areas reflecting my attributes, and you make sure we don’t go crazy. Easy enough, right?”
“Sounds pretty boring,” Alex complained. “Is there anything else I can do?”
Theo cupped his chin in his hand, having a good think for a moment. “You want to become a true dragon, right?” he asked. Alex nodded eagerly. The alchemist shrugged in response. “Why not do the same thing we’re doing, but for dragon energy?”
“Explain.”
“The technique you’re using to take on a more draconic form is simple. You’re eating dragon parts and assimilating the energy into your body. Just like you were able to change your affinity from fire to nature, you’ve altered your body by accepting foreign energy and making it a part of yourself.” Theo withdrew the bones of a near-god dragon from his inventory, placing it on the ground. Somewhere distant, the eyes of many monsters swiveled to lock onto this new signature. “Use the technique Tresk invented, except don’t target the universe. Target the bone, instead.”
Alex lumbered over, her massive form hovering over the bone as she got down on her knees. She gave it a tentative sniff, looking up to Theo expectantly. “I’ll just look into your mind, then… I guess.”
“I’ll guide you, if you need it,” Theo said. “No need to go into this blind.”
Alex nodded, turning her entire focus to the bone. She wasn’t as talented as Theo or Tresk at extracting magical energies. Even the alchemist’s techniques were crude before his partner revealed the way. Much like them, Alex pulled the information from their bond, assimilating it into her own mind to turn it from an idea to fact. She nodded as her very being parsed the information.
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Theo realized in that moment the true strength of the Tara’hek. It made them powerful in a lot of ways. They got access to more attributes, extremely overpowered skills, and a bond that always boosted their mind. Sharing information would be strong enough, but they could transmit more than just data. They could send experience through the connection, meaning that only one member had to be good at something for them all to be good at it.
Alex used the bond to master the technique in minutes.
“Okie dokie. There’s a lot of dragon energy in here,” Alex said. “Feels like a lot more than what I get from eating it.”
“Yeah, because we don’t have a refined technique for drawing power by digestion,” Theo said. “Tresk developed this ability to siphon power from somewhere into your body, so that makes sense. Just focus, and you’ll get access to far more power than before. Mix some celestial energy into that while you’re working and I think you’ll have some amazing effects.”
Alex nodded, getting to work right away. Theo felt the image she had in her mind. When she ate the dragon bones, she was doing more than just accepting the latent energy within. She was reshaping herself to meet an ideal image she had in her mind. The image she currently conjured was frightening. It combined aesthetics from both marshling and Drogramath Dronon physiology, with swooping horns, thick scales, and a long whippy tail. She wanted to be bipedal, with massive webbed wings and a ridge of spines along her back.
Right now, Alex was what Theo would consider a proto-dragon. Her form was stunted. It was far too short in the body, with short legs and too many feathers. If she could achieve her goal, she would look more like a proper dragon. Her new form wouldn’t look exactly like Pogo, but it would be close. He was certain there was some amount of dragon lore in this world, but hadn’t run into it. Perhaps he could find a dragon and ask. If only they didn’t have a habit of running at the first sign of danger.
Instead of falling into the deep trance that Tresk had developed, Theo instead observed Alex for a few days. He took naps here and there as she siphoned the energy from the bone, switching between his shallow meditations, napping, and digging into his food stock. The most interesting thing was how much energy the single bone had within it. It was about the length of the alchemist’s arm, and would normally only have lasted her a few hours if ingested. Instead, the bone was a trove of power that she wove with celestial energy.
In a matter of a week, Alex’s form had changed. She had less feathers, more scales, and a distinctly draconic appearance. Almost everything about her goose form was gone, even her cute little honk. This struck Theo as tragic, at first. He wrestled with the image he had in his mind of his familiar, but eventually squashed it entirely. This was what Alex wanted to be, not the image he projected of her. She’d always be that cute little goose to him, but he had to recognize her new form.
Because after a month of absorbing the same bone, Alex was now a dragon. There was no other way to put it. Her scales had taken on a purple-green color, and the last of her feathers had vanished. Her body was long and low to the ground and her powerful wings spread out in either direction. Theo winced as he realized she would no longer fit in the barn. Instead of her ten-foot-long body, she was now at least thirty-feet, not including the tail which was about the same length. Her snout was blocky with teeth visible no matter how she held her face.
Alex turned, regarding Theo and seeming to recognize her own changes. From underneath her scales, a wave of glowing light rippled over her form. It was a mixture of that same green and purple color that marked her form, eventually coming to a head at her throat. The dragon pulled her head back, releasing a gout of the same color flames into the air. Theo had to shield his face from the intensity of the heat. He probed his face, finding his eyebrows still there.
“Much more effective, isn’t it?”
“Indeed,” Alex said. She said it. With her vocal cords, which Theo was certain she didn’t have before. Her voice was throaty, rumbling over the paper landscape like an avalanche. “That’s new.”
“You’re horrific,” Theo said, walking around to get a better look at her. He patted her side, feeling warmth from underneath the impossibly thick scales. “Looks like you wove celestial energy directly into the draconic energy… Well, that’s some ascendant-level dragon god energy, so we shouldn’t be surprised.”
“And what of your progress?” Alex asked, blowing another ball of fire.
“Slow. But we have as much time as we need here,” Theo said, closing his eyes and reaching out to the dragon’s mind. “Looks like you’re smarter, too. And really cunning. Is that a dragon thing?”
“Perhaps,” Alex said, sounding far more mysterious than she ever had before. “I don’t see how I could get more draconic than this, though.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Theo said with a shrug. “Instead, you should focus on getting yourself stronger in general. The amount of celestial energy in the paper dimension is vast, but I wonder if you wouldn’t mind if I worked on myself for a while.”
“Oh, right. I forgot why we came here,” Alex said. She produced a laugh-like sound that was more horrifying than it was amusing.
Theo laughed nervously. “Yeah. Use the low-effort technique to siphon celestial energy while I go into the meditative trance. Oh, just keep an eye out for the monsters. They’ve been attacking over the last month, and they’re getting more annoying by the day.”
Alex blew a plume of smoke from her nostrils, head swiveling as she looked out over the horizon. “I’ll burn them all to ash.”
Before Theo could object, the dragon was off. He sighed, taking a seated position in their paper town and closing his eyes. He could feel her intent to keep him safe for the entire time he was collecting his own energy. Before slipping into focus, he considered the changes she had undergone. It was best to introduce her slowly to the town. People didn’t really like dragons back home, so they very well might freak out if the see a dragon flying above.
“Thus is life,” Theo sighed, reaching out to the universe. “Now, let’s see if we can’t pluck some power from thin air.”
Theo fell into his meditative trance, accepting as much energy as he could find. When the switch finally happened, they wouldn’t have access to such drastic time-dilated spaces. He would need to get as much power as he could before that happened, because he could only guess what would fall on them after the change. The throne holders had a duty to protect the mortals and he didn’t plan to fail in that regard.