Unbound Soul Part 5 Epilogue / Part 6 Prologue

This epilogue is a short one, so I've thrown in the part 6 prologue too. Remember there's no chapter posts next week.

Epilogue

High up on a mountainside, above the Emerald Caverns, the area's tundra was interrupted by a region of unnaturally smooth stone. A completely flat, semicircular area was set in front of a cliff-face, which itself held a cave with an unnaturally rectangular opening, as if it were a window looking out over the lesser mountains nearby, and the glittering sea to the east.

One didn't need to step far through this opening to see that it was indeed not natural, the entrance opening up into a massive cavern, forty metres in diameter. The floor was once again polished stone, but a couple of raised stone platforms were obviously artificial. Not only were they positioned to provide an optimal view through the entrance, but natural rock formations rarely came with matching purple cushions.

A pale blue quadrupedal creature was sitting on one, her belly resting on the cushion to take some of her crushing weight off her feet. Being twenty metres long had its downsides, alas, and even if she could use skills to make herself smaller, doing so always felt uncomfortable.

A thin mist surrounded her, condensing around her scales, which glistened as if with frost, but it did nothing to obscure her elongated body, nor her claws and wings. She was one of the proud members of that ancient and powerful race—the dragons.

Thankfully, there was no-one else in the vicinity to hear the thunderous snoring, or view the bubble of snot attached to the end of her snout or the small puddle of drool that had formed beneath it, or else the reputation of dragons may have been somewhat damaged.

The sun moved across the sky and dipped towards the horizon, until the dragon cracked open a single eye, peering out into the twilight. A second dragon swooped into view from above, having travelled from the other side of the mountain, and flew into the chamber. He slowed his flight with a single, mighty beat of his wings, and landed gracefully on the stone with barely a sound. Although smaller than the female, he was no less imposing, his dark red scales shimmering with an internal heat.

"You have returned, my husband," said the female, her voice deep and regal, yet laced with care. "How fared you upon your mission?"

"I fared well, and was met with success. I have retrieved the core in which Erryn stored her memories."

"Then we must protect it well, yet I find myself disappointed that it will be of no aid to our current situation. As expected, there was another event yesterday."

The female stood, raising her bulk from the dais on which it rested, and strode deeper into the cave. If her tail happened to flick around such that it was in exactly the correct position to block the pool of her drool from Kranakellicium's line of sight, it was a complete coincidence. Or so she would claim.

Her husband followed down smooth and well lit passages until the pair emerged in an entirely different sort of chamber. A waterfall of lava ran down the far wall, forming a glowing pool that filled the cavern, and yet in the centre grew a flower of ice, the molten rock hissing and bubbling around it, but the ice standing proud and unharmed. It took the form of a lotus, with petals tens of metres across, a weighty mix of fire and ice affinity mana dancing around them.

The dragons took to wing, crossing the lake of lava and landing in the centre of the flower, on which was placed another cushion. And, on top of that, lay a half dozen eggs. Kranakellicium unfurled the claws of one forepaw, revealing a small orb held within, dwarfed not only by the dragons, but even their eggs. He placed it delicately upon the cushion, treating it with no less care than he afforded his unborn children.

"Until such a time as Erryn is rested, healed, and ready to awaken once more," he said.

"Until then," agreed Serlvrenalliacta, the [Empress of Eternal Ice]. "Until that time comes, we shall protect this world in our mother's stead."

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Prologue

Administrative notification: Mana anomaly detected at coordinates 58.190, -40.791

Serlvrenalliacta sighed as she read the notification, her breath leaving a cone of frost across the stone floor of her home.

"As expected, there it is again. Exactly seventy-point-four-nine hours after the last one."

"Where is it this time? Should I investigate?" asked her mate, Kranakellicium.

"It's far out over the ocean, in the frozen north. You would not make it in time."

"Then what are we to do? This cannot be permitted to continue."

"We can do nothing. Even Bruleggiamlixanax, with the aid of [Hecate's Power], was unable to probe the previous anomaly. We must accept that no System skill is capable of interacting with them. Fortunately, they have proven themselves safe, even when in close proximity to the weak or the young. With their short lifetimes, the drain on the ambient mana is below what regenerates naturally."

Kranakellicium snorted, the heat melting the patch of frost and leaving the stone glowing a dull red. "Even I can see that with each occurrence, the anomalies grow in stability. And yet each occurrence lasts for an identical time, despite that fact. Not to mention the exact time period between each event."

Left unsaid was the obvious conclusion: that the anomalies were not natural. And worse, that whoever was responsible for them was learning.

"Why must this start so soon after Erryn had left us?" complained Serlvrenalliacta. "I don't recall signing up for this stress."

"Nor did any of us."

As the dragons grumbled, out in the far north, far from any landmass, a crack grew in the air, five metres above the floating chunks of ice. The mana of the area rushed towards it, flowing freely through the fracture as if it were a drain. For around nine minutes it hung there, fixed in place, before it once more snapped shut. The ambient mana in the area had plunged, but it soon began to recover. In a couple of days, there would be no sign there that anything had happened.

And on the other side of the crack...

"The shape alterations reduced the power requirements by ten percent, but we still need to find another thirty percent of savings before we're able to extract more energy from the reaction than it costs to sustain."

Half a dozen individuals in white coats were staring intently at various displays, the largest showing a view of a metallic sphere, no more than a metre across, into which tens of rods were stabbed. A blue glow around the sphere, seemingly emanating from the air itself, faded away to nothing as the equipment powered down.

"Even so, we're getting closer. Start the reset for next week's test, and we'll experiment with the frequency variance. Did we pick up that feedback signal again? If so, see if we can trigger a resonance."

"And to think we were laughed out of the renewable energy conference. There's going to be a sea of red faces at the next one, that's for sure."