The First Dragon of Marble

Chapter 11

I can hear birds in the distance when my mind comes back to wakeful consciousness. I feel my head on something soft and someone brushing my hair with their hand. I had never felt more at peace before this very moment. Basking in the warmth of the person petting me, memories come back to me of fighting monsters and descending a never-ending cave with each level more dangerous than the last. Finally, the memory of fighting a dragon comes back and my eyes shoot open only to be blinded by the sun. “Agh.” I groan as I squint my eyes until someone leans over to block the sun’s rays from my eyes. As my eyes focus, I see two beautiful eyes with the colors red and blue swirling around each other along with a loving smile. “I see you are finally awake my little dragon.” With disbelief in my voice I say, “Tia…Mother?” The woman’s smile becomes brighter as she says, “Yes, little dragon.” I look away from her and see that I am the same room I was in the last time I was here. The sun was beaming through the window lighting up the room. “Did I die again? Did that…dragon win in the end?” Tiamat shakes her head from side to side, “No, little dragon, you did not die. You thoroughly defeated that deplorable Ancient Wyvern. They are nowhere in the league as you and I.”

I sit up slowly from Tiamat’s lap and the bed feeling refreshed. I look at my body to see my body was clothed in a silk shirt and pants with Greek like sandals on my feet. Looking at the rest of my body I see a lot changes just on my arms. I used to have scars on my arms but were now covered from the top of my forearms up to my shoulders to my neck, with midnight purple scale pattern tattoos. The color of midnight purple is the same color that swirls around the crimson red in my irises. Confused I lifted my shirt to find no trace of where the monster’s sludge touched my stomach or any bruises from the battle, nor any scars from my other fights with monsters. Only the same scale pattern tattoos covering my abs and chest. I look at Tiamat confused to which she giggles. “Your scales are so beautiful Ladon. I would expect nothing else from the son of the Goddess of Dragons and God of Magic.”

My eyes go wide at the implication of her past couple of statements. “Wait, wait, mother please back up Mother.” I take a deep breath to get my thoughts in order. “You said that thing was a wyvern not a dragon?” She furrows her brows, and I could feel a sliver of her power and it almost made me piss myself. “Never confuse those overgrown lizards as dragons again Ladon. They are NOT the prideful and honorable beings that we are. They are a gross misuse of mana that has corrupted beyond hope.” With a cold sweat I say, “I’m sorry Mother I did not mean to offend you!” She finally notices what she was doing and gets a grip on her power before going back to her loving attitude, “You are not just insulting me Ladon. You are insulting yourself.” I wipe the sweat away from my forehead and tilt my head in confusion, “What do you mean I insult myself?” “Have you not figured it out yet? Hehe…Hmm.” She waves a hand, and two mirrors appear in the room. I jump at the mirrors appearing out of nowhere still not used to this sort of thing. “Take off your clothes and look in the mirror and circulate your mana organ throughout your body. I saw you make use of your mana in the dungeon as if it was always a part of you. Your father is especially proud of you.” I raise my eyebrow at being told to take off my clothes in front of her, but I guess clothes are a trivial thing for gods. “Father is proud of me?” She nods her smiling. “Oh yes, I couldn’t go a day while you were in the dungeon without hearing how impressed he was with you when you used mana as an extension of yourself or your weapons.” It felt weird being praised especially from gods no less.

I stand up and take off my shirt laying it on the bed and then I checked before taking off my pants and saw that I had boxers. Then I wondered who dressed me and quickly threw the thought far out of my mind. I stripped down to the boxers and stepped between the mirrors and what I saw shocked me just as much as when I first saw myself at the Drunken Elephant. My face was the same as before the dungeon with the addition of longer white hair with a crimson red and midnight purple tinge down past my shoulders. My beard had been shaven off leaving the stubble I liked to keep. What shocked me was the two horns swept back on top of my head. They are midnight purple in color and when I reach up to touch them, I feel a smooth surface and are a little sensitive to the touch. I glide my finger along the surface to the tip where a sharp pointed end greeted my fingertip. I look at the mirror in front of me to the mirror behind me and see the same wing tattoo on Tiamat’s back in her humanoid form, is now also on my back. The tattoo depicts crimson red furred wings furled with the tips at my shoulder blades with the base tips reaching below my boxers around the middle of my thighs. I pull my boxers down a bit and see another tattoo at the base of my spine and in the middle of the wing tattoo stretching and wrapping down my left leg down to me foot. Looking closer at my leg away from the mirror I see the tattoo is a dragon’s furred tail with the same color as the hair atop my head. The same scale pattern tattoos on my chest and arms are also on my shins, calves and upper front thighs.

I look away from myself to Tiamat and after looking closer she had the tattoo patterns on her body where I could see that wasn’t covered up by her red sundress. I look at her face and see a bright smile that only a mother would when looking at their son when they graduate college, not that I would know. “Am…Am I…Am I a half dragon?” I finally stuttered out with effort. Tiamat shakes her head and says, “No little dragon, there is no half about it. You are a full fledge dragon. The one and only dragon son of the Goddess of Dragons and the only dragon on Marble.” Feeling my legs were about to give out I hurried to the bed. “But my soul is human right? How could I possibly become a dragon?” I ask her with a shaky voice. Her smile falters a little and says, “Do you remember the conversation we had before we sent you to Marble?” “A little some of it is hazy.” She nods and continues, “Yes, your soul was human, but so were the other races apart from the humans that still exist on Marble. Remember, the other gods used the souls that dwelled in the Well of Souls. Every elf, dwarf, mink, and other races have souls that were once humans. Those souls were just as human as you were, though to mine and Odin’s knowledge no one was reincarnated onto Marble with their memories like you were. That is as much I can tell you though I’m sorry Ladon. The gods have rules, and we must stick to them to avoid chaos not just on Marble but other worlds in the Cosmos that survived the Mana Fusion.” She pauses and seems to try to read my emotions. “Have Odin and I misused our power? Is this not something you wanted?”

I look at her and think to myself, “Am I really attached to being human? If anything, it was just an identity. Identities can easily be discarded with enough reason to do so. Do I feel that they played me...No, all they have done is give me a second chance and if I can become even a tenth as powerful as Tiamat…as Mother, then what do I have to complain about. Plus, I look awesome. I wonder if I can transform like her too.” A smile comes across my lips, and I look Tiamat straight in the eyes. “No, Mother, you and father have not misused your power. If anything, I am now even more grateful towards you both. I just…just hope I can make y’all proud and not make you regret your choice of picking me for the honor of being your son.”

The next thing I know after finishing speaking my mind, I feel myself in a warm embrace and a wet sensation hitting my cheek. I notice that the wet feeling is tears, and I hear Tiamat’s voice to next to my ear, “Little dragon. My little dragon you are the one who honors us. I know I will never regret my choices. That is how we dragons are, we are decisive and stand by our choices. I love you so much Ladon. We have been watching you when we can, and you have worked so hard. We are so proud of you.” All the weight that I had no idea I was holding suddenly lifted off my shoulders from her motherly words and for the first time in a long time I feel tears on my cheeks that were not Tiamat’s.

After several minutes she gently pushes me away at arm’s length before saying, “Now enough with tears. Let’s go see your father. He has been patiently waiting for you to wake up.” We stand up and I dress myself before we leave the cottage and see Odin standing in the meadow using magic to water the flowers. He turns around to see us and a fatherly smile appears on his face when he sees me. “Welcome back son and congratulations from defeating your own dungeon.” I stop in my tracks and ask confused, “My dungeon?” He chuckles and says, “Well we created it,” he points to himself and Tiamat, “but it was meant for you so, I guess you could say that it was your dungeon.” I furrow my brows and say with a little annoyance in my voice, “So, what, was that hell hole a test for me or something to play with me with?” “No, no Ladon nothing like that. It was meant to train your body and magic to be able to transform into what you were meant to be. A dragon.” He keeps his smile but drops it when he thinks of something unpleasant and says, “Though we did not expect those sorry excuses for living beings to betray you like that. After we saw you escape the horde of kobolds and destroy them all we decided that you would be able to handle yourself in the dungeon and closed off the entrance. If you were to go back to Melcox as you were, we were afraid that that human’s group would hunt you down to keep you quiet.” After listening to him I had conflicting feelings towards being trapped in the dungeon for over a year but in the end decided that it was out of love and protection for their child along with trust that I would make it through the dungeon.

I sigh and say, “Fine, I guess I can accept that reasoning. Thank you for protecting me and trusting in me that I would conquer the dungeon.” He smiles again and says, “I was most impressed by how you used your mana. The way you used it as an extensions of your body was incredible. Most people just force the mana out haphazardly and forcing the mana…” I look at Tiamat who just rolls her eyes and smiles wryly at me mouthing to me saying ‘I told you so.’ I smile back and listen to Odin go on a rant of how refined my method of using magic was.

We are sitting in the meadow under a gazebo that Odin conjured along with table, chairs, and tea with cookies. “Sometimes I feel like I’m in England with all the tea and snacks.” I think to myself as we chat with one another about nothing in particular. I would listen to stories of the Realm of the Mystic before the war, and I would talk about Earth before I died. I enjoyed spending time with them. I started feeling that this must be what a family is like. The sun started to set, and Odin set his tea down and looked at me and said, “Ladon, would you like to stay here and train before going back to Melcox?” I raise my eyebrows and ask, “Last time I wasn’t able to stay very long. Would it be worth the time to start training only to be sent back in a few hours?” Tiamat grins and says, “That was only because you were in a pure soul state. Now your soul and your body are in our domain so you can stay here for around six months before any damage from our domain causes any damage to you. And as you grow stronger the longer you could stay but I imagine the time we see each other again you may have a partner.” She smiles and raises her eyebrows up and down playfully. “Haha perhaps.” I laugh off Tiamat teasing before saying, “If it would not be a bother then I would love to be with you two a little longer and training would just be a bonus.” They smile brightly and nod. We chat a little longer and then turned in for the night. I laid down on the bed they designated was mine and decided to see what gains I got from killing the Ancient Wyvern.

[Defeated Ancient Wyvern. Ancient Wyvern soul essence absorbed.]

{Level up} {Level up} {Level up} {Level up} {Level up}

{Level up} {Level up} {Level up} {Level up} {Level up}

{Title Earned. Dungeon Conqueror. Raises all Attributes by 10 permanently.}

{Title Inherited. Dragon Son of Gods Tiamat & Odin. Raises all Attributes by 20 permanently.}

{Title Earned. First Dragon of Marble. Raises all Attributes by 5 permanently.}

{Feat claimed. Jason and the Colchian Dragon. Raises the Strength and Agility attributes by 3 permanently.}

I just stare with my mind’s eye at my personal scroll dumfounded. I gained ten levels just from killing that wyvern then I gained three titles, which apparently gives massive boosts to attributes. I also finally gained another feat that raised my strength and agility. “Jason and the Colchian Dragon? Wasn’t that a hero story from ancient Greece mythology…Cool” Proud of my progression as I drift off to sleep excited to be around Tiamat and Odin again. 

The next day we are all sitting around a table in the dining room of the cottage. On the table is eggs, bacon, and toast with some milk and orange juice. I gladly dug in since the past year I had been living on disgusting monster meat or questionable cave mushrooms. Tiamat was smiling at me and was still wearing an apron. “Slow down little dragon, hehe, there is plenty more.” Tiamat giggles as I realize I was eating like a savage. “Ah, that is embarrassing. I’m sorry Mother.” “Fufufu, it’s ok little dragon. I’m glad it seems you like my cooking.” I blush from and embarrassment, “Yes it the best food I have tasted since I arrived in Marble.” Her smile becomes wider, and an air of superiority surrounds her.

Odin who has been quiet so far speaks up speaking to Ladon, “We have decided that Tiamat will train you in the morning and I will take over in the afternoon. How does that sound son.” I put down my glass of juice and nod my head, “Sounds good to me Father. What kind of training will I be doing?” Odin takes a bite of eggs and swallows before answering me, “Well for me I will be training you with magic. I’ll help you learn new spells and teach you how to come up with new spells of your own.” He looks at Tiamat and she takes over, “I’ll teach you all about dragons and how to transform into your dragon form.” I could feel my excitement rising as I anticipate being able to transform into an awesome dragon.

After finishing our meal Tiamat takes me outside and through the forest past the meadow surrounding the cottage. We finally reach a plain with tall green grass. She turns to me and says, “First of all, Ladon, dragons are the most unique race out of all the races the other gods here in the Cosmos and the Mystic have ever created and I am not just saying that because I am the Goddess of Dragons. We, at our core, are the masters of bending mana to our will. Our mana organs have no limits of growth.” I nod listening closely to what Tiamat says. “We also have more robust bodies compared to the other races.” “Is that why my wounds have always healed quickly?” I ask her to which she nods in confirmations. “Now I want to show you something really unique to us dragons. Stay here at a safe distance.” She walks further in the plain about ten feet away and stops. I hear her take a deep breath for a few seconds before finally I am met with a sight that I never thought possible. “ROOOOAAAAARRRRR” Tiamat roars so loud that you would never think it possible that such a sound could escape from such a beautiful woman. Along with the roar I see a continuous stream of sapphire blue flames burning the grass and ground several yards away. “Wow” is all could say when the stream of fire stopped, and Tiamat turned back towards me smiling. “That, my little dragon, is what separates us from those disgusting wyverns. Well, that and we are more majestic and intelligent.”

I simply nodded my head too scared to say anything about wyvern after how she reacted last time, I mentioned them. She comes up to me and places her hands under the end of my jaws close to my neck. “Dragons have more than one ethereal organ. It can be trained just like your mana organ. The ethereal organ I am speaking of are our flame sac organ that resides around your lymph nodes.” “So, I can do that too?” I ask wanting to breath fire. “I feel like a kid on Christmas morning right now.” “Of course, that is where we are starting your training. Once you have a sizeable flame, we will train in partial transforming so that you can fight in your humanoid form with your claws, wings, and tail, along with having your scales for protection. After that we will practice transforming into your full dragon form.”  I nod and she instructed me on the feeling of my flame sacs and how to use my mana to produce fire. By noon all I had achieved was smoke coming out of my nose. We walked back to the cottage for lunch and my training with Odin. I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t progress and show off for Tiamat, “Don’t worry my little dragon we have time for you get the hang of it.” “I know mother, it’s just I wanted to make you proud is all.” We reach the meadow, and she turns towards her and kisses me on the forehead and says, “You already have, Ladon.” She pulls back so I could see her face and she smiles, “Now go see your father. I’m sure he is itching to talk and teach magic to you.”

I look around and see Odin sitting under a gazebo with a chalkboard. We walk over and see lunch set out. We all eat together and talk about how my training with Tiamat went. Afterwards Tiamat transforms into her dragon form and flies off into the distance. “Where is she going Father?” I ask Odin. “She is going to perform her duties for the day. Now let’s begin with you magic training. First tell me what you know so far son.” I explain about the ethereal organ and the basic elements. Also, I explain about how to train and grow your mana organ. I even mentioned when Don helped me recognize my mana and how I saw strands flowing in different colors. Odin beams with excitement when he hears this. “As I would expect of my son. What you saw was the mana of Marble. Everyone and everything have their own mana signature like a fingerprint. I can help you see mana better so that you can judge how powerful someone is or even find traces of them in the world around you.”

“That sounds really useful. If I could develop it, I could possibly turn into a magic detecting radar.” I think to myself. “Now tell how you learned to use the magic you performed in the dungeon.” Odin says to me getting closer and closer with each word. I scratch my cheek and look away thinking of how to explain it. “It is rather hard to explain now that I am thinking about it. Hmm…I guess I was mostly just using my imagination and referencing stories from my past life. The four elements, fire, water, wind, and earth are easier to use than space, light, and darkness. I don’t know why though.” Odin backs up and sits down with his hand to his chin thinking. “Hmm…maybe that is because they are the most physical and easy to understand of the elements for you.” “Well, it’s easy to imagine fire getting hotter with what I know of how fire reacts to scientific elements. I am by no means a genius, but science was taught to everyone before the world ended.” “So, you use your imagination along with Earth’s knowledge of the laws of the Cosmos?” I try to follow what he was talking about. I was just your average student with decent grades in school before joining the Army. “I guess you could say that. I mostly use my imagination because my knowledge of science was nothing to be praiseworthy.”

“No this is a good base for how to use magic. I use similar methods though it seems your body is a better conduit for your mana organ. It was always something I envied about your mother.” He smiles when he mentions Tiamat. “Do the people of Marble not know how to use this method of using magic?” I ask him. “I have watched the people of Marble every now and then when my duties allow me, to see how their magic has progressed and how they are coexisting alongside mana.” Odin looks away and seem to stare at something in the past. “They progress only to take two steps back. Whether it be war, monster rampages from rouge dungeons, or mana induced disasters it seems the races of Marble struggle to get along with one another and survive.” He looks back at me with a serious face and says, “Tiamat and I know it is difficult for the races to live on Marble. We do not want our child to be at the mercy of anyone or anything.” I adjust myself in my chair at his tone. “I want to see something; may I check your mana organ?” I nod and he places a hand on my chest opposite of my heart.

“As I thought, your organ is growing at a rapid pace though very strained from your overuse during your battles.” Suddenly a bright light appears from his hand on my chest, and I feel a warm sensation throughout my body wiping away a fatigue that I didn’t know I had. He pulls his hand back and the light dims and disappears as he leans back into his chair. “How do you feel now?” He asks examining me with his eyes. “I feel a lot better. I didn’t notice that I was as tired as I was before you did whatever you did. Thank you.” He nods and gets up and walks to the chalk board. “Now let’s go over the basics of how to use mana again from my point of view and then I will teach you more advanced spells, teach how to mediate to grow your mana organ, and then I will supervise you creating your own spells.” I nod as I moved to the edge of my seat eager to learn for the first time in my life or should I say lives.

The months flew by faster than I would have liked. I grew fond of living with people who genuinely cared about me. The training was hard and tiring but I was enthusiastic about learning to be a dragon from my mother and the wonders of magic that now existed in the world. Tiamat would turn her lessons into contests which made the teachings more enjoyable. My flame sacs grew to the point that I was able to breath a red purplish flame that could reach around five yards away. Though not even a hundredth of the power of Tiamat’s flame breath she still praised me saying that she was astonished at how fast I was learning.

Once she deemed my flames good enough, we carried onto the humanoid form of dragons that conjured my scales, wings, tail, and claws. Not going to lie, we looked badass. When completed the full transformation my tattoos would come alive and turn into what they depicted on my skin. My scales were hard and sharp to the touch. It was like I had my own natural armor. My feet and hands would grow claws and talons that would tear through a tree trunk within seconds. My wings had a wingspan of twenty feet along with white fur and crimson red skin for the inside. The tail that was attached to my lower back is a muscular appendage that I could move just like my arms and legs. It is covered in white fur on top and scaled on the bottom. Tiamat taught me how to fly and fight using my claws in this form.

She then guided me how to transform into a full dragon form like her when we first met each other. Near the end of my stay, I finally got the hang of transforming into this form but was severely disappointed that when I did, I was no bigger than a medium sized dog. Tiamat giggled and said it was because I would need to grow my mana organ more before I could reach a size comparable to her. My full dragon form looked similar to hers only smaller and different colors. Instead of having her red fur I had white fur tinged in purple and red. She has five horns where I only had two to which she said that I would grow more horns the more powerful and older that I got. The scales on my underside were a midnight purple just like my half dragon form. While in this form she taught me how to fly and even walk since I was not used to walking on four legs.

Odin on the other hand taught more about magic. He decided to build upon what I learned inside the dungeon guiding me to better flow mana through my body. By the end I could more freely use magic to attack and defend myself. The elements seemed to bend to my will as we did mock battles against each other. He would always win though. He would give me pointers where I could improve and taught me more powerful spells like Flamethrower and Water Whip.

The three elements that I had trouble with were space, light, and darkness. He explained that these elements were more complex and needed ‘out of boxing thinking’ to use. The space element could be used to control gravity and distance. The light element dealt with illusions more than offense along with the darkness element that could cause status effects such as blindness and terror. He also taught me the elements could be combined and be categorized into sub elements such as earth and water elements combined to produce the nature elements that conjured spells that control plants or animals.

During one lesson I asked if there was a spell that could store things. Odin then explained that items could be imbued with mana to create effects and to answer my question, yes and no. No spell can be used to store things but something like a ring can be imbued with a space element enchantment to store items inside. He mentions that they are very expensive on Marble and only a few know how to enchant anything with the spell. He then went on to teach about different enchantments such as creating light with a lamp and weapons with certain spells to increase lethality of the weapon. I thought to myself that I needed to get a hold of such items as soon as possible.

Another year has gone by, and I am standing in the meadow with the both of them. Tiamat is smiling with tears, so I go up to her and hug her. “We will see each other again little dragon but I am afraid it will not be as short of a time as a couple of months…sniff” “I figured mother. I had a pleasant with you two and y’all have taught me so much. Thank you, I love you.” When I say this, I am brought into a hug from Tiamat that nearly crushed my ribs. Once she let me go, I turned to Odin. “We have taught as much as we could in the short amount of time you were here Ladon. I know you will do just fine now on Marble. Let no one use you and always stay true to your word son.” I nod and shake his hand. Then Tiamat speaks up again, “When you leave you will be back in the dungeon on the floor you killed the Ancient Wyvern. There is a room inside where we have left you some things to help you. It’s not much but consider it two birthday’s worth of gifts.” Speechless and before I could understand what that meant I see a blinding light and hear a voice say, “We love you little dragon. Live free and proud as the dragon you are.” Then I found myself lying on a cold hard floor.