Path of Dragons 14 - Chapter 16 - Disgust

Disgust was a powerful drug.

It latched onto a man’s mind, gripping it so tightly that he could think of nothing else.  And though Elijah was a dragon, he was also a man who’d drawn very definitive lines between what he would tolerate and what he would not.

He didn’t care about the gambling.  If someone wanted to cling to that vice, then that was their business.  Nor did he object to prostitution, at least not in and of itself.  People could make their own choices, and if that was how they chose to make a living, then he wasn’t the sort to tell them they could not. 

He drew the line at slavery, though.

And there were a lot of slaves working in the monument to excess known as Meridian Lux.  At least half the Courtesans working inside the massive fortress were there only because they had no choice.  Elijah had seen the collars.  He’d sensed the control runes branded upon their bodies.  He’d witnessed their hesitation.  Their derision.  Their absolute self-hatred.

It was worse outside.  Much, much worse.

He’d spent a couple of days in the city, mostly in the Shape of the Scourge so he could avoid notice.  But in that time, he’d felt the full weight of the city’s debauched existence.  Slavery ran rampant.  Human trafficking was commonplace.  Theft was around every corner.  People murdered one another in the streets, and without a single consequence. 

Everyone who worked there only did so because someone had robbed them of choice.  Even if they weren’t slaves, they might as well have been. 

And it disgusted Elijah. 

He fed off of that feeling, letting it fuel a cycle of hatred that clung to him like an aura.  So far, he’d yet to kill a single person responsible.  But now?  Now, the time had come, because the man in charge was only a few feet away. 

He stared across that polished table and into Olaf Bruener’s eyes. 

“I made an example once,” he said, his every muscle tense.  “You might have heard about it.”

“Bloodrock Bay,” Olaf responded.  “I think you’ll find Meridian Lux a much harder target, Mr. Hart.”

“I don’t.”

“A lot has changed since you left,” the detestable man said, stating the obvious. “The world’s moved on.  You’re not the strongest man on Earth anymore.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I do.”

“Then that’s just one more mistake to add to your tally,” Elijah replied.  “There’s more to power than a few levels here or there.  You’re nothing to me.  Even that little domain of yours won’t save you.  Nor will those people closing in.  Only one demi-god?  It’s almost insulting that you think that would be enough.”

“You think a lot of yourself,” the man said, taking another puff from his cigar.  “And too little of me.”

“Too little?  I don’t think it’s possible to think less of you.”

“The rest of the world disagrees.”

“Most people are self-serving idiots,” Elijah stated.

Olaf laughed.

It was the last voluntary sound he ever made.  Having tired of the conversation, Elijah leaped across the table and rammed his hand into the stunned man’s neck.  When he ripped it away, he had a trachea clutched between his fingers.  As Elijah perched on the table, thick blood dripped from his hand. 

And the entire casino went silent as Olaf Bruener died.

A second later, a swarm of shimmering flies manifested around him.  The cloud swirled as Elijah pushed himself to his feet and turned to face the shocked crowd. 

“This man deserved his death.  If you believe yourself innocent, step forward, and I will judge you.  But if you are guilty, know that I will not rest until you are dead,” he announced.  As he did so, he let his antlers appear.  Green fire erupted from each point, then flowed down his body.  The vines decorating his armor flashed with power, surrounding him with ethereal shimmers.

That was when they attacked.

The sound of hundreds of gunshots filled the casino as Elijah found himself blanketed in ethereal bolts.  None of them got through Nature’s Shell, which turned out to be a lot more powerful than he’d expected. 

He stepped down, his bare feet slapping against the tile floor.  A woman darted out of the crowd, a pair of short swords gleaming with energy.  She felt stronger than all the others, though Elijah couldn’t tell if she was a weak demi-god or a powerful ascendent.  Either way, she looked like she was moving in slow motion.

Her swords came down, one after the other in a pair of overhand chops.  Elijah dodged one, then slapped the other aside before snapping out a quick jab that shattered her jaw into a hundred pieces.  She flew backward, her face ruined as she tumbled over her underlings and furniture alike.

Elijah took a step forward, and his enemies pulled back.

It was almost comical.

Meanwhile, the customers had already begun to flee.  Most just sprinted for the door.  Others glared at Elijah, as if he was the source of all life’s ills.  Doubtless, they were men and women who resented him for interrupting their good time.  And assuredly, they would remember him.

Which was the point.

Elijah could have easily infiltrated Meridian Lux under the cloak of stealth.  He could have used Eternal Plague to slaughter everyone inside, and without anyone even knowing he was there.

But that wasn’t what he wanted.

No – Elijah needed to be seen.  There needed to be witnesses.  In that way, he would ensure that everyone on Earth knew the consequences of crossing his lines.

                          *

“Not again,” Rusty mumbled from the stage.  “Oh, God.  Not again.”

Everything had been going so well.  Sure, he knew what sort of place Meridian Lux was.  Everyone did.  But they paid their entertainment well, and besides – there was a waitress he’d spent the past six  months trying to woo.  She barely knew he existed, but he was on the verge of making his move.

He was!

He just needed the right level of fame.  The right amount of money.  In his mind, he would whisk her off her feet and carry her to a better place.  Maybe they’d even settle somewhere like Ironshore. Or Seattle.  Maybe even Argos.  A real city with rules and culture.  Not a place like Meridian Lux that only existed so that the powerful elite could keep their vices separate from the rest of their lives.

But it was a good place to earn a living, especially for a man trying to change his path in life.

For years, he’d bounced from one frontier town to the next, usually working as a guard or someone’s hired thug.  It paid the bills, but it was anything but fulfilling.  Especially when he knew there were people like Elijah Hart out there.

People who could tear through him like he wasn’t even there.

He’d seen it in Bloodrock Bay so long ago.  Rusty had only survived that event because he’d been allowed to.  But it wasn’t really the impetus behind his sudden change of heart.  Sure, it had scared him.  Of course it had.  But he was a fighter.  A thug.  That was his only real skill.

Unfortunately, he’d burned through the wealth of that pirate enclave within a couple of years, which pushed him right back to square one. But in the interim, he’d discovered a gift. 

He was a fantastic storyteller.  A decent singer, too.  When he spread the word of the fall of Bloodrock Bay, people listened.

Even so, it took him a while to recognize the opportunity that presented.  When he did, he worked up a plan, and over the next few years, he played every venue he could find.  Half the time, he starved.  He was no Entertainer, after all.  But he persisted, and when it came time for him to choose his ascended class, he was offered the hybrid Bard evolution. 

He took it immediately.

And ever since then, he’d steadily honed his skills and worked his way up the leveling ladder.  Now, he’d hit the big time.  Meridian Lux.  A venue that could make or break an Entertainer’s career, and he had a stage all to himself.

His songs weren’t like the ones from pre-World Tree Earth.  Rather, they were long stories told in rhythm. 

Like the epic poems of old.

And with his latest abilities, they were enough to hold his audience’s rapt attention.  Of late, the experience had been pouring in, too.  So much that he thought he had an actual shot at reaching demi-god.  Not soon.  Probably not for another few decades at the earliest.  But eventually.

Now, that was beginning to look a lot less likely, because Elijah Hart had come back into his life.

All around him, people were screaming as they rushed the doors.  The stampede would’ve killed more than a few mortals, but most everyone there had earned enough attributes to endure that small amount of damage.  It couldn’t have been pleasant, though. 

Rusty leaped from the stage and grabbed a scantily clad waitress, dragging her out of the way of a stampeding bull of a man.  He pulled her close as the man stomped by.  He must’ve had some sort of weight-increasing ability, judging by the way the floor shook with his passage.

“You okay?” Rusty asked.

The girl didn’t answer.  Instead, she squirmed away from him and rejoined the crowd. 

Even as he ground his teeth at the lack of so much as a thank you, people attacked Elijah Hart.  The main battle – if it could even be called that – was far enough away that Rusty didn’t think he was in any danger of catching stray shots from the guards’ standard-issue pistols, but he still didn’t want to be around when the Druid got serious.

So, he turned to join the flow of traffic out of the building, only to find that the way was clogged by bodies.  Rusty had no idea what had happened to them, but it didn’t take him long to notice the flies buzzing through the air.

They didn’t swarm everyone, indicating that they were no normal insects.

The fact that anywhere they landed came with falling bodies was the other major hint.

It was like something out of the Old Testament. A plague that would’ve impressed Moses.  Soon enough, the air was thick with flies and the stench of dying people. 

Rusty turned and ran, vaulting onto the stage and rushing into his tiny, closet-sized dressing room.  He bulled through the door, then slammed it behind him.  As he sank to the floor, he heard screams.  Explosions.  He heard the unmistakable sound of death, and he was taken back to that day in Bloodrock Bay.

He hadn’t counted how many people Elijah Hart had killed back then, but he knew the number reached into the thousands. 

Meridian Lux was even more densely populated.  At any given time, at least fifteen thousand clients roamed through the massive, fortress-like compound.  Sometimes, there were twice as many customers inside.  And that wasn’t even counting the employees. 

The waitresses and cooks.  Courtesans and Entertainers.  The guards and off-duty members of the warband.

Were they all doomed?

Rusty had no idea, but what he’d seen in Bloodrock Bay gave him plenty of hints about what was coming. He’d escaped the Druid’s wrath once.  He didn’t think he would be so lucky as to repeat that feat.

Still, he had no clue what else to do but hide, even if he didn’t think it would work.

A fly flew beneath the door and hovered before his face.  It came close, landing on his cheek.  He froze, not even breathing, but he couldn’t stop the tears from coming. 

Then, just as Rusty’s wasted life flashed before his eyes, the insect took flight and returned the way it’d come.

He let out a quivering breath.

“I really need to straighten out my life,” he tried to say, though his voice came out as nothing more than a croak.