Page 82 of Gate of Chaos


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They are text and diagrams, itiswritten, but they are not physical except as the capsule that unfolds into the grimoire. Chaos dragons did not READ grimoires, they forge them into their existence. You acquire the experience and knowledge of the one who came before you, just as you enter cosmic echoes and absorb the event and experience that created the echo. It is a permutation of scale-encryption, which I assume you are familiar with, given your Distant Star is a Healer.

Well, that sounded terrifying. “So you’re the accumulated knowledge of five hundred thousand years of Chaos dragons?

Do not be dramatic. Of course not. I am the accumulated technical knowledge ofoneChaos dragon, who herself was trained by a Chaos dragon, which meant her teacher’s grimoire was not consumed and may still exist.

“So can a Chaos dragon consume multiple grimoires?”

Yes. But it would be very unwise to do so. Grimoires are meant as a failsafe and are an inferior method of education. They must be safeguarded, but frequently are not, and the process begins anew. If a grimoire is found, it should be preserved, not devoured. Still, Chaos often washes away such things, and renewal is required, even of Chaos itself. Such is the inevitable nature of entropy. Even entropy itself is the victim.

So could K’Dol train me? I caught myself before I flapped my wings with excitement. Couldn’t get ahead of things. Needed to focus, because K’Dol could be full of shit. “But everything of the Queen was found and destroyed. How did you gethere? She died on the other side of the world.”

Since when is that an obstacle for a Chaos dragon? She could have evaded the Lemurian dragons for a lifetime. The Lemurians knew this. So they hunted her consorts, and her children, destroying her scale by scale.

K’Dol’s anger burned from across the eons, and naming it caused the song twisted into this place to rise to an agonizing trill I knew, in a small part, myself. The grief and rage andlossthat had warped a Chaos dragon into the Usurper Queen.

I flapped to steady myself, the anguish coursing through my own warped tethers and the scars carved deep in my soul.

Not even K’Dol called the Queen by her name. Had the Queen decidedfuck it, I’ll be the Usurper Queen, and gone full deranged despot?

K’Dol seethed, and then when she spoke again, her voice was a hiss.

You know this grief, little geode, don’t you? It’s inside you, waiting to be cracked open. I have given you a glimpse of how deep it will cut. Nothing you have suffered until this point is truly the depth of suffering.

You will know you have the power to destroy everything THEY will dare to build from the ashes and bones of your grief. How THEY will build atop what they took from you. I can sense that inside you now. I can feel the grief and anger. What comes, little geode?

“Obviously nothing good if I exist,” I said. “And no, I’m not going full despot.”

True. The Usurper Queen survived losing her consorts and pups one by one by one. Can you say you will be able to endure that loss? I know you can feel her hatred from across the eons.

“And she’s still gone,” I said. “I’ve accepted no matter what happens, I will lose something I love. No one istakingit from me, K’Dol. I’m choosing. If there is anyone I am going to hate, it’s myself. Because I have the power to try to take action to prevent what’s happening, and I’ve chosen not to use it.”

K’Dol swirled.Why not?

“Because I believe it would be futile. Now tell me how you got here. Please.”

When she knew all was lost, she teleported to K’Dol and entered the portal. Here, in this place, I am unbound and unfolded. Then she returned to her last surviving consort, the Scholar, to die with him. Such was her intention. I cannot know if it was true or not.

“Lemurian history says that’s what happened,” I told the grimoire. “I also have no idea if it’s true or not. Many records from that time have been edited or destroyed or locked away.”

K’Dol had no comment on this.

“Tell me what consorts she had.”

She had four: a Prime, a Mooring, a Scholar, and a Warrior, Two dragons, two humans.

Not exactly a “despot conqueror” assortment. But with two humans... “Who were the humans?”

Her Warrior and Scholar were human, her Prime was an Earth-born Fire and Metal dragon, her Mooring was an Earth-born Ethereal of low magic but scales like polished river rock.

“An Ethereal with no magic?” I asked. “How did he survive stasis?”

Through her. She had her Prime and Mooring before stasis, and found her Warrior and Scholar afterwards.

“And you?”

She told me to call myself K’Dol, after the structure that I am contained within. It bound me to this place. She knew no one would find me here, and if they did, they could not harm me, and one day, another Chaos dragon would find me.

K’Dolcouldbe lying.

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