14-38. The Empire of Scale

Elijah gritted his teeth in frustration.

Without looking at the helpful system readout concerning time, he would’ve had no clue how long he’d been traveling. There were no landmarks. No helpful bodily needs by which he could mark time, as he had in the void. Just an endless river of blue-and-green.

He summoned the persistent notification:

He dismissed the countdown and lay back. One of the most surprising aspects of teleportation was that his body was entirely intact, and that he could reposition himself for comfort. He wasn’t certain why he’d expected anything different, but when he had first learned of the Teleportation Network, he’d imagined himself turning into energy and being reconstituted in a new location.

But that just wasn’t how it worked.

Instead, he now understood that it was basically just a pathway through the void. In physics terms, it was like a wormhole. A tunnel through space-time, connecting two faraway locations. When used to travel on Earth, it was over too quickly to see it properly. But going to another world in an entirely different universe? That took time.

And Elijah had spent that time mired in frustration, because his designs just weren’t working the way he wanted them to. He’d consulted his notes. He’d remembered all of his experience, first as a biologist, then his time nurturing Treebie and terraforming Gorveth. But no matter what he did, he kept running into a wall.

The idea was simple enough.

He wanted his core imagery to incorporate some of the principles associated with Treebie’s runic root system. But for whatever reason, that simple concept was unworkable for his core.

He was missing something. There was some factor he’d not accounted for. He just didn’t know what it was.

And now he was only a few hours from reaching the Empire of Scale, and he’d made no appreciable progress. It made him want to destroy something. If he’d been back on Gorveth, he would have long since ventured into the depths to take out his frustrations on the native monsters.

But in his current situation? He had no choice but to stew in his failure.

Hopefully, it would be temporary.

For the final three hours before his arrival, he set his cultivation efforts aside and forced himself to relax. It wasn’t easy, especially without the ability to discard leaves. But he didn’t dare do that, for fear that he would destabilize the teleportation tunnel.

As a result, that last leg of his journey felt longer than all the rest combined.

Then, at last, the countdown forcefully activated and superimposed itself before his inner eye:

It counted down until, finally, he reexperienced that sensation of being sucked through a pinhole. When he felt his feet hit solid ground, he found himself incapable of stopping himself from letting out a long gasping breath.

Until that moment, he hadn’t even realized that he had spent the entirety of those three weeks without taking a single breath. When the system said that his biological needs would be suspended, it wasn’t kidding.

He blinked as his eyes reaccustomed themselves to something other than blue-and-green energy.

That was when he saw an Envoy.

Standing on four legs, and looking like a draconic centaur, she was obviously a tetradrak. Like Dolo back in the Broken Crown, though she was obviously far more powerful. Maybe a peak demi-god or even a low deity. And she was a lot bigger, too.

Elijah craned his neck to look up at her.

“Emerald Archon,” she said, her voice rumbling. She leaned closer, making Elijah feel like a prey animal. “Interesting. Who are you?”

“Nobody,” Elijah answered.

“Hmm,” she responded, still not giving him any space. Her eyes flashed as she activated an ability. “Your passage was paid for by…oh. Oh, my.”

She pulled away, apologizing for her impropriety. Seeing a fifteen-foot-tall tetradrak wringing her clawed hands was definitely a sight.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“It’s fine,” Elijah said. “Just doing your job, right?”

“Right! My job. Just doing my job.”

“Uh…can I…”

Elijah gestured, hoping that the motion to indicate that he wanted her to step aside was universal. Turns out, it was, and she did just that. “If you go through there, you will reach the arrivals lobby,” the Envoy explained, indicating a nearby door, the frame of which looked as if it had been made from braided gold and silver. The rest of the room was somewhat plain, save for a single, sapling-sized Branch of the World Tree.

It was much smaller than he’d expected, given that the world – Esik, if Elijah remembered right – was located within the Empire of Scale. But he wasn’t one to point out that sort of thing. So, he just nodded to the Envoy, thanked her – for whatever reason – then stepped through the huge doorway.

As soon as he broke the plane, he was assaulted by a wall of noise.

Thousands of voices, all at once. Some were big and booming. Others were small and high-pitched. But they all coalesced into an overwhelming auditory wave that crashed into Elijah like a solid thing.

He nearly stumbled.

But he barely maintained his footing as he beheld the enormity of the building before him. It stretched as far as he could see, with gleaming walls flowing from the floor like golden mountains.

Elijah’s heart raced.

So many people. So many dragons.

It was a sea of scales and claws. Some took a form similar to his own draconic shape, though with much smaller dimensions. Others were like the Envoy. Still others were humanoid, but with reptilian features. Elijah also saw elves, humans, dwarves, and every other race he’d ever encountered. And so many others he’d never seen before.

No one there noticed him at all, either.

For once in his life, he was entirely anonymous.

Or mostly. There were guards standing sentry all around. Most were tetradraks – or whatever the two-legged versions were called – though there were a couple of other races represented among them. They noticed him, but after a flash of recognition, probably from an inspection ability, they moved on.

He was just a demi-god, after all. Nothing special.

Relief flooded Elijah’s mind as he stepped forward and joined the disjointed flow of traffic. As he did, he saw that the room – if something that large could even be referred to with such a mundane designation – featured hundreds of attached chambers just like the one in which he’d arrived. Inside each of those alcoves was an identical sapling-sized Branch.

Elijah continued on, gaping like a tourist until he got caught staring at a particularly striking humanoid with incredibly vibrant scales. He jerked his attention away, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment. The subject of his intense study just snorted a amused chuckle.

After that, Elijah didn’t stare at anyone for too long. Instead, he directed most of his attention at his surroundings, which were just as grandiose as he had expected. Gold and silver abounded, but for one reason or another, it didn’t quite pass into the realm of ostentatiousness. Instead, it somehow managed to seem tasteful.

A thousand feet above loomed a domed ceiling covered in dense, golden scrollwork that cast illumination into the entire cavernous chamber. By contrast, the floor seemed almost mundane – at least until Elijah looked closer to see the tiny runes carved into the tiles. They were detailed enough to be scrimshaw, and they emitted a refreshing aura that doubtless eased the burden of the long walk.

The flow of traffic eventually took Elijah to the other side of the massive chamber, where it flowed into an even bigger structure. It only took Elijah a few seconds to recognize that it was the hub, while his arrival point was just one spoke among many. Nine, to be exact – each one hosting hundreds of Branches.

But Elijah wasn’t really thinking about any of that.

Instead, his attention locked onto something at the center of the hub-room. It was more than a mile away, but Elijah didn’t need Eyes of the Eagle to see the landmark. In fact, it was so huge that he could scarcely look at anything else.

It was a crystalline tree, hundreds of feet tall and as big around as any redwood. As Elijah drew closer, he saw that it stood upon a thirty-foot-tall plinth and was surrounded by powerful-looking guards. What’s more, emerald veins pulsed within the clear crystal confines, shimmering as vitality traveled throughout the entire form.

Elijah didn’t need a guide to tell him that he was looking at the true Branch of the World Tree, and one that had been around for thousands of years. Maybe longer. He could feel it calling to him in a way he’d never anticipated. His arrival point was just an off-shoot of the real Branch.

If he wasn’t already certain that his Emerald Archon class inextricably connected him to the World Tree, then what he felt in that moment was enough to solidify that reality in his mind.

But oddly enough, it didn’t call him to action. Instead, it just enveloped him – like a warm blanket – comforting him in an indescribable way that made him think of home. Not the grove, either. Those childhood nights he’d spent with his parents. With his sister. It was contentment given structure.

In a daze, Elijah wove his way through the crowds he no longer cared to study. And then, he found himself standing just below the Branch, staring up at it in awe.

“It is beautiful, is it not?” came a raspy voice.

Elijah didn’t look away before he answered, “Words don’t do it justice.”

“Indeed, young Druid.”

Only then did Elijah glance away from the magnificent Branch and behold the speaker. The sight of a hunched-over and scaled humanoid greeted him. She leaned on a cane, and her red-and-green scales had long since lost their luster. Her features were almost human, though her obvious draconic heritage came through in her eyes.

Behind her stood a draconic man. Massively muscled, he looked like a tetradrak, though with only two legs. He also carried a large sword strapped to his back, and he looked like he knew precisely how to use it.

“Who are you?” Elijah asked.

“My name is Tura,” she answered, a twinkle in her reptilian eyes. “Perhaps your nephew told you something about me?”

Elijah vaguely remembered Miguel doing just that, though the details had always been a bit murky. Something to do with time bubbles and training. It had been so long ago that Elijah remembered very little of the story.

He nodded. “He might’ve mentioned you,” he said. “And I’m assuming that’s the other one?” he asked, nodding toward the giant fighter.

“My bodyguard,” Tura allowed. “Birk, say hello.”

He grunted.

Elijah didn’t think Tura needed a bodyguard, given what he felt of her power. If she wasn’t a deity, then his entire scale of power was off. But he didn’t mention as much.

“Did Kirlissa send you?”

Birk hissed.

“What?”

“You do not speak her name,” he growled. “You have not earned the right.”

“Oh, leave it, Birk,” tsked Tura. Somehow, she managed to roll her reptilian eyes. “He is her son by adoption. He can call her whatever he wants.” Then, to Elijah, she said, “But if you prefer politeness in the hopes of avoiding misunderstandings, you can refer to her as Prosperity.”

“Is that a title?” Elijah asked. “Like queen? Or empress?”

“Something like that,” Tura agreed. “Now, if you’re done staring at the Branch? I must guide you forward, lest you lose your way. She does not often wait upon others.”

“We’re going to her? Now?”

Elijah had expected as much, but he had no idea how things worked. For all he knew, even speaking to a transcendent like Kirlissa violated some long-standing taboo. From that short exchange, he could infer that they looked at her like a sort of goddess. Even passing familiarity with such an entity was likely very rare, especially for someone who’d barely scraped the possibilities of demi-godhood.

“Soon, boy. Very soon,” Tura said, channeling the kind grandmother. Elijah wasn’t fooled. The woman might’ve been old, but she could snuff him out in an instant, had that been her desire.

The same could be said for Birk, who didn’t feel any weaker than his charge. Or any number among the thousands of others walking through the hub.

Once again, Elijah was reminded of just how low he stood in the hierarchy of multi-versal power.

But he wasn’t intimidated. Instead, he just felt excited by all the possibilities.

“Let’s go then,” he agreed with a grin.

And just like that, off they went, merging with the flow of pedestrians with Birk leading the way.