A slime.
A dinner-plate-sized, translucent, blue slime sitting on a rock, quivering slightly in the morning light.
The lean one’s face went through terror, confusion, and outrage in the space of three seconds.
“Shit — it’s just a slime!” He kicked at the ground, his face red.
“A pathetic slime!
I nearly — we nearly — because of THAT?!”
He drew his dagger and lunged.
The movement was fast, angry, careless — the swing of a man who had been frightened and needed to reassert his courage through violence against something small and weak.
The dagger came down toward my body, and I activated Steel Thread.
Silk erupted from my surface.
Not a single strand — a net, a web, a cocoon of adhesive silk that wrapped around the mercenary’s arm, his torso, his legs, his mouth, contracting and hardening in a fraction of a second.
He went from attacker to mummy mid-swing, the dagger clattering to the ground, his body toppling like a felled tree.
‘Thud.’
The broad one drew his sword.
Elen raised hers.
“STOP!” Sii’s voice cut through the tension like a blade.
She stepped forward, her staff raised, her eyes blazing.
“Do not attack!
That is Lord Veldora!”
Silence.
Complete, absolute, ringing silence.
Elen stared at Sii.
Then at me.
Then at Sii.
Then at me again.
“That,” the broad mercenary said slowly, “is Lord Veldora.
The Storm Dragon.
That slime.”
“Yes,” Sii said, without a hint of hesitation.
“That — that thing — that’s the size of a dinner plate.”
“Appearance is not substance.
Lord Veldora has been sealed.
His form has been reduced.
But his power — his essence — remains.” Sii lowered her staff and looked at me, her expression perfectly composed, perfectly faithful, perfectly rehearsed.
“Is it not so, my Lord?”
I bounced once.
A small, deliberate motion.
Then:
“It is fine.”
My voice echoed across the clearing.
Elen’s sword dropped from nerveless fingers.
The broad mercenary sat down heavily.
The mummified lean one made a muffled sound through his silk gag that might have been a prayer or a profanity.
Elen fell backward.
She landed hard on her rear, her hands behind her, her chest heaving, her eyes locked on my small, round, translucent form.
“The magicules,” she whispered.
“I can — I can feel them.
The magical pressure coming from — from that—” Her voice trembled.
“It is too strong.
It is far too strong.
This is — this is impossible.”
The broad mercenary had gone grey.
A dark stain was spreading across the front of his trousers.
The lean one, still wrapped in silk, had stopped moving entirely — whether from terror or unconsciousness, I could not tell.
Sii knelt.
She bowed her head, her staff laid across her knees, her body bent in submission.
“Forgive them, my Lord Veldora.
They do not know.
They do not understand what stands before them.
Please — forgive this impudence.”
I let the silence hold for a moment.
Then:
“It is fine.”
My sensory awareness swept over them — the trembling princess, the terrified mercenaries, the kneeling mage.
I could feel their fear through the ambient magicule field — a collective, radiating terror that tasted like copper and static electricity.
“But,” I continued, and my voice was calm, measured, carrying the weight of a being that had lived for centuries, “you should not roam around here, Princess.”
Elen’s breath stopped.
“How — how do you know that?” she whispered.
“How do you—”
Sii moved before I could respond.
She rose, crossed to Elen, and smacked the princess on the back of the head.
Not hard — a sharp, corrective tap, the kind a teacher gives a slow student.
“Do you not see?” Sii said, her voice carrying the patient exasperation of a devotee explaining the obvious.
“He is Lord Veldora.
Of course he knows everything.
He knows who you are.
He knows why you are here.
He knows what you had for breakfast.”
Elen’s face cycled through shock, embarrassment, and a dawning, horrified comprehension.
“Oh,” she said.
“Oh.
I — I forgot.
Does — does that mean he also knows about—” She stopped.
Her eyes went wide.
“Aren’t you too talkative?” I said.
“Sit up.”
Elen sat up so fast she nearly fell over again.
“Forgive me, my Lord.
Forgive me — I did not mean to—”
I bounced.
One hop, two hops, three — landing on Sii, settling into her arms, her hands cupping my body automatically, pressing me against her chest.
Her breasts were soft beneath me, full and warm even through the mage’s robe, and I nestled into the valley between them with the comfortable familiarity of a creature returning to its favorite spot.
“Come on,” I said, my voice directed at the group.
“Stand up.
All of you.
We are making camp here tonight.”
They obeyed.
Of course they obeyed.
When a slime that radiates enough magical pressure to make a seasoned adventurer wet herself tells you to make camp, you make camp.
The clearing at the base of the cliff was suitable — flat ground, sheltered by the cliff face on one side and dense forest on the others, the remnants of a natural rock formation providing a windbreak.
The broad mercenary — his name was Gido, I remembered, though I pretended not to know — gathered firewood with the frantic energy of a man trying to prove his worth.
The lean one, freed from his silk cocoon by Sii, moved stiffly and refused to look in my direction.
Elen built the fire.
Her hands shook the entire time.
Sii set up the tent — a conjured structure, woven from magical thread, large enough for four.
She moved efficiently, her staff planted in the earth, her hands weaving mana patterns with a competence that confirmed her magical training.
I watched from her chest, my body warm against her skin, my sensory awareness cataloging every movement, every reaction, every stolen glance the others directed at me.
‘They are terrified’, I thought.
‘Good.
Fear is useful.
Fear keeps people obedient.’
I looked at the two mercenaries — Gido and the lean one, whose name I had not bothered to remember from the source material.
They were rubbing their chins, exchanging bewildered looks, clearly uncertain whether the entire situation was real or a shared hallucination brought on by bad water.
‘Should I eat them?’ I considered it.
Eating a human would give me a human form — that much I knew from the lore.
But I did not want a human form.
Not yet.
Not from them.
I wanted something better.
I wanted a form drawn from the Storm Dragon himself — a body built from draconic essence, shaped by Veldora’s power, forged through the dissolution and absorption of a True Dragon’s flesh.
For that, I needed to be stronger.
Far, far stronger.
The fire crackled.
The tent stood.
The sun set.
Night fell over the Jura Forest.
~~ Night
The fire burned low.
Embers glowed orange against the dark, casting flickering shadows across the campsite.
The forest hummed with its nightly symphony — insects, wind, the distant calls of creatures that hunted in the dark.
The magicule density in the air thickened after sunset, the ambient magical energy concentrating as the natural world settled into its nocturnal rhythm.
Sii slept in the tent.
The mercenaries slept near the fire, their weapons close, their bodies curled into the defensive posture of men who were deeply, fundamentally uncomfortable with their surroundings but too exhausted to stay awake.
Elen slept fitfully.
Her silver-white hair was spread across her bedroll, her sword beside her, her face creased with the tension of a mind that could not stop calculating, planning, worrying.
Hours passed.
The moon rose.
The fire burned down to coals.
Elen’s eyes opened.