Board & Conquest: A Godly LitRPG

Chapter 116: The Season of Dragonstars

It was a heavy burden to be born a dragon in a world of minions.

Every day, Insupportable felt the weight of his duties; with the knowledge that his followers—nay, the world—required his enlightened dragon guidance to live peaceful and productive lives in his service. Left to themselves, they were like hatchlings: confused, loud, lost, and vulnerable. It was a dragon’s solemn task to mold them into loving servants who would adore their scaled masters forever.

Insupportable used to take their affection as a matter of fact, a law of the universe… but the temporary death of his most prized chief of staff, Bernard, had hammered home how fragile good minions were. The world was full of threats that wanted to take a dragon’s treasures from them, whether they had a pulse or not.

So when the sky came crashing down on his doorstep, he had kindly and magnanimously decided to lead the investigation personally. Ever good and faithful Bernard had tried to dissuade him, saying that his presence wasn’t necessary, but that was just his natural humility talking, and so Insupportable insisted.

Besides, those were falling stars. They had to come with treasure! Being a good neighbor, he had also sent a message to Lady Glatisant, in which he informed her she could participate in the treasure hunt and graciously allowed her to keep one percent—one full percent, rounded up—of anything they found.

Alas, her mind was altogether occupied by something other than matters of hoards.

“I tell you, the danger is real!” Glatisant insisted as they oversaw the crash sites—as in they let the minions do their thing while they supervised from atop a nearby hill. “We are close to a complete worldwide population collapse!”

“You are exaggerating,” Insupportable replied with skepticism. As much as he trusted his fellow dragon’s expertise on monarchical environments, she could be such a worrywart sometimes. “Princessness has bounced back from worse.”

“We must look at the facts, the facts.” Glatisant raised her claws. “First, Princess Victoire does not seem interested in making more princesses; second, Valentine has fallen to democrato-anarchists whose goddess has now taken over the Kingdom of Timberan.”

“Timberan is full of elves; they only count as half a kingdom at most.”

“But they are still one of the few monarchies left. Third, while Lavaland’s royal family is taking steps to perpetuate their princess line, they are still putting themselves in danger with all this war nonsense; fourth, the Zoramesh Empire’s line requires the absorption of other bloodlines, so their princessness cannot perpetuate themselves; and fifth, these maddened Titans and their Brood creatures are set on destroying the dragon way of life!”

“Their murder of Princess Bloodstone is unforgivable,” Insupportable added in perfect agreement. He personally blamed the fool Soumis for that blunder, but he had learned from his mistake and admirably defended Princess Victoire since. “And the Brood are untasty! Eating them sickens my tummy!”

“Exactly, our minions are stretched thin dealing with those critters, and knights are too occupied to reproduce with princesses. This situation is unsustainable, unsustainable.”

“When you put it this way, that is a concern, but what do you want us to do?” Insupportable replied. “I am sure Princess Treasure will find a mimic knight worthy of siring a new royal line, but we cannot hurry nature along.”

“What we need is a network of monarchic castle-states,” Glatisant suggested. “This land of Verglane is sparsely populated and unexploited, which makes it the perfect location to create a grand royal reserve where princesses and princes can live in close proximity and reproduce.”

“Won’t that lead to inbreeding?” Insupportable pointed out. Inbreeding was the second greatest danger to the perpetuation of the princess species, behind democracies.

“Not if we institute an advanced selection program and closely monitor marriage alliances for the next two hundred years,” Glatisant replied. “I am certain Divine Minion Wepwawet will see the true genius of this plan, since it is mine.”

“Do not forget to chastise him if he errs in his judgement,” Insupportable suggested. “Sometimes he forgets himself.”

“I know, sometimes it feels like he doesn’t understand his purpose in life is to serve us,” Glatisant lamented. “Anyway, have the minions uncovered any treasure yet?”

Insupportable turned towards the excavation site to check on his minions’ progress. The falling stars had devastated a small plain and left dozens of house-sized or district-sized craters in their wake. Minions from Narc, led by Werebear Lourson, had arrived alongside giants from Fort Jarlack to support the endeavor—and they had the gall to negotiate a percentage share first! As if working for him wasn’t rewarding enough!

Minion Bernard oversaw the operation and had his assistants dig out the falling treasures from the sky. One of them still smoked from the heat of their fall, with vapors rising high into the cold night sky.

“Your Divine Draconic Majesty, would you honor us with your icy breath to cool down these rebellion flames?” Minion Bernard begged his beloved dragon master.

“Yes, I shall,” Insupportable replied. A good dragon should never miss an occasion to show off to his minions to make them feel valued. He thus took a deep breath and then exhaled ice upon the skystone until it cooled down.

Insupportable waited for the mist he had raised to dissipate so he could salivate at his new treasure, only to grow disappointed when the skystone proved to be blacker than onyx.

“It’s the biggest chunk of blackstone I’ve ever seen,” Minion Lourson noted. “And here I feared this meteorite would hatch like a lunarian egg or something.”

“Blackstone meteorites would explain why they appeared so quickly,” Minion Sagesse commented. “Considering the distance between the moons, it should have taken hours for projectiles coming from there to reach the ground. Blackstone has intense magical properties that probably factored into their acceleration.”

“Ugh, so it does not shine?” Insupportable complained. “What a waste of time! This is unconstitutional, unconstitutional!”

“I would even say it is pulchritudinous, pulchritudinous!” Glatisant added. Though Insupportable didn’t know the word, he nodded and pretended he did so as not to lose face.

Minion Lourson stared at the dragons for a long time, as he was likely mesmerized by their high-quality vocabulary, then shook his head. “I could craft some good armor and weapons out of these meteorites. Blackstone is effective against the Brood, so this might be a blessing in disguise.”

“I would not rejoice so soon, Lourson,” Sagesse argued. “This phenomenon couldn’t have been natural. The moons have crossed countless times without hurling blackstones at us.”

“Those stones fell when the moons crossed?” Glatisant asked while she looked up to the sky. “Is it that time of the millennium already?”

Minion Sagesse’s head perked up. “That time of the millennium? Has this happened before?”

“Oh, right, you minions don’t live that long.” Glatisant gave the feeble werelings a look full of compassion. Insupportable thought she was about to weep for a second. “I had forgotten. Poor creatures.”

“Please enlighten our feeble minds, oh wise and all-knowing Lady of Treasured Scales,” Minion Bernard said, eager as he was to become a better-educated servant.

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“Gladly, young Bernard.” Glatisant cleared her throat. “A very long time ago, when your ancestors still toiled in the mud, we dragons faced a very peculiar year where stars would fall from the sky once per month each time the moons crossed. We called it the Season of the Dragonstars, since we obviously discovered it first.”

“Oh, I remember!” Insupportable nodded to himself. “I wasn’t born then, but my parents mentioned it.”

“Still, it is coming a bit early this millennium,” Glatisant said. “I hadn’t expected it for another century or two.”

“I can venture as to why this is the case,” Minion Sagesse muttered to herself. “So you say we’ll face eleven more blackstone rains during the year?”

“Oh no, each rain will be worse than the last,” Glatisant replied. “More stones will come down to earth each time the moons cross at the end of every lunar month.”

The minions fell silent, and a worrying thought took over Insupportable.

“How many?” he asked his fellow dragon, his heart suddenly overflowing with that itching ‘concern’ emotion that had taken him over when Minion Bernard perished.

“By the final month, so many stones fell that the earth spewed fire, dust covered the sky, ice covered the world, and two-thirds of our minions starved in the resulting winter.” Wise Glatisant marked a short pause as she realized the issue with that. “Now that I think of it, that could become an issue for our monarchy conservation plans…”

They cracked the tomb open at sunset.

Victoire feared they would have to ask Soumis to blow the door open, but Renarde and Gaspar managed to unlock the doors on their own through a combination of solving inscription-related puzzles and magical spells. The gates of the pyramid had opened, revealing a blackstone corridor stretching into darkness.

“No parasites came out, and I don’t smell any of them,” Goreville noted once the Champions gathered at the entrance. His torc glowed on his chest. “Yet I sense a presence inside. A living presence.”

“T’was quite odd,” Gaspar said. “The locks on the pyramid were closer to puzzles than actual defenses.”

“Puzzles?” Jasper asked. “Like tests?”

“Yes, intellectual analysis tests.” Gaspar clutched his cane. “I do not think this tomb was meant to be locked forever.”

“We won’t find out the truth unless we check inside,” Renarde pointed out.

Victoire nodded. “Let’s go in with a small group. Gaspar, Jasper, Goreville, Renarde, with me. Everyone else stays on standby in case we have to evacuate, and be sure to put the mind-shielding circlets on.”

“Wait,” Lord Wepwawet mentally said the moment Victoire took a step forward. “I sense Influence coming from within.”

Victoire’s heart skipped a beat. “Like the Lady of Brocéliande?”

“Yes, like the Lady,” her god replied with a hint of apprehension. “Either the Betrayer is the most powerful ghost I’ve ever seen, or they’re alive and on the verge of becoming a local deity themselves. I am ready to cast Miracles on you all should the worst come to pass, but stay on your guard.”

Victoire scowled, one hand clutching her spear and the other her hexlock shield. She walked first into the tomb with Goreville and Jasper hot on her trail. Gaspar and Renarde closed the march, with each of them wearing blackstone circlets meant to protect them from mental effects.

They walked into a dark corridor of blackstone so large a dragon could have easily squeezed through. Energy coursed through the walls along crimson veins of light embedded in the very walls, like a pulsating heartbeat. The inside of the tomb was far chillier than the Wyld’s jungle, being almost as cold as Verglane. Jasper’s fiery body provided warmth and light for the group.

They advanced warily, expecting traps or an attack, yet being only met with silence even as they saw faint light ahead. The group slowly stepped into a large, domed room of blackstone lit by strange crystalline devices. The walls housed strange doors with thick glass windows. Victoire dared to peek through one, only to immediately step back when she saw an insectoid face behind it.

A lunarian.

Dozens of lunarians lurked behind each of these metallic doors, their eyes closed, their insectoid legs folded like corpses. Victoire would have mistaken them for dead if not for the slight, almost imperceptible movements of their chests.

“They look asleep,” Jasper noted.

“This must be some sort of stasis,” Gaspar replied, stroking his beard. “They are oddly undefended.”

Goreville tensed up, his sword raised at another corridor leading deeper into the complex. “I hear something’s coming our way. Something large.”

“Prepare for battle, but do not make the first move,” Victoire ordered her troops. “We have come here for answers, not a fight.”

Her group nodded as steps echoed into the room. It didn’t take long for a lumbering shape to emerge from the depths of the pyramid, great and colossal.

A lunarian walked up to greet them.

It was about as large as Archon had been, an insectoid centaur with four three-clawed legs, a chitinous tail like that of a dragon, and a humanoid torso covered in crimson plates forming an exoskeleton. It had two arms eerily similar to those of a human, a misshapen growth of pulsating brain matter bursting out of its back, and white mandibles for a mouth. A single, cyclopean blue eye observed the group

“What do we have here?” It asked in a voice neither male nor female. Though it used a language Victoire didn’t recognize, her god’s Elephant Wisdom Miracle translated it easily enough. “So you are the people who woke me up?”

“Who are you?” Victoire asked, spear ready for battle at the first sign of hostility. The lunarian didn’t seem aggressive, but she had clashed with their insidious kind too often to take any chances.

The lunarian’s eye spotted the circlets on their heads. “Your minds are shielded.” The creature sounded oddly disappointed. “You have met others of our kind under unfavorable conditions, have you not?”

“The lady asked you a question, crawlie,” Goreville said threateningly.

“I seek you no harm,” the creature replied calmly. “I am Thoon, guru of the Kinhood of the Harmonized Quintessence. Long have I rested there, waiting for the day when the children of Elphion would advance enough to coexist with us.”

Renarde quickly recognized the name. “You are the Betrayer?”

“It is the name most of my kind gave me once, yes, though I have betrayed no one and stayed true to my beliefs.” Thoon’s eye squinted at the group. “There is… something about you… a presence that guides your steps.”

“He can sense me,” Lord Wepwawet said.

“Yes, I can hear you,” the lunarian said, much to Victoire’s shock. “You seem to be a being of pure quintessence. So our beliefs have been proved right in the end…”

“Quintessence?” Gasper asked, unable to suppress his curiosity. “You mean mana?”

“Is that what you call the essence of all things in this day and age?” Thoon studied the group for a moment. “I would like to make mental contact with you in order to catch up on the last millennia, but I assume you will not trust me so easily.”

“Sorry,” Victoire replied. “I would give you the benefit of the doubt, but we are currently at war with your kind.”

“I understand. Again, I seek you no harm, and neither will my sleeping kindred. Those you see in these chambers fought side by side with your ancestors in ancient times.” Thoon glanced at Goreville’s torc. “Including the one who wore that necklace.”

Goreville blinked and lowered his sword. “You knew the hero Grand-Loup?”

“Yes, I did. I crafted the device you wear around your neck as a gift, though its power seems to have diminished. I should be able to restore it if you want.” Thoon let out an inhuman sound that Victoire took for a sigh of satisfaction. “I am very happy to see that your kind has endured through the centuries. I feared you would have gone extinct during the Winter Age.” Thoon then turned to Jasper. “As for you… it is the first time I see a creature like you.”

“I am a magmorian of Lavaland,” Jasper replied proudly. “A husband first and a warrior second!”

“Fascinating… I do not think our kind created you, but you carry psychic emanations akin to our craft. It seems we have missed much in these long centuries.”

“You said you fought against your kindred alongside werelings once,” Lord Wepwawet spoke up. “Why?”

“We of the Kinhood of the Harmonized Quintessence believe in the transcendentality of the soul, which you have achieved yourself, oh great being,” Thoon replied. “We believe that attachment, including the domination of lower minds, is both a source of misery and the chain that binds us to the physical world. Only by practicing altruism and detachment can we break through the cycle of suffering, achieve enlightenment, and transcend the material world to become one with the universal Quintessence.”

“You’re Buddhists?!” Lord Wepwawet asked, his tone wavering in surprise.

Thoon’s eye blinked. “That term is unfamiliar to me, but if this is what you call our beliefs… then yes, we of the Kinhood of the Harmonized Quintessence are proud Buddhists.”

“I know a certain Monkey King who will be quite happy to enlighten you.”

Victoire had no idea what a Buddhist was, but she could get the gist of it. “So your religion forbids you from enslaving us?”

“Yes, we believe it is morally wrong—not to mention spiritually counterproductive—to oppress other creatures, especially those whose evolution we have shaped. Thus, we sought to abandon our slaving ways and guide all species towards harmonization with the universal Quintessence.” Thoon chittered in annoyance. “Alas, we could not convince the greater lunarian collective nor the Overmind of the righteousness of our beliefs, which led to a great conflict Elphion still bears the scars of.”

“The Overmind?” Renarde inquired. The term was new to them. “Is that the lunarians’ leader?”

“The greater lunarian collective does not have a central leader… but it does have something of a spiritual guide. The Overmind is the sum of deceased lunarians whose minds have merged into a repository of telepathic knowledge. It directed the great war… and still does, from what I understand from your wariness.” Thoon studied the group in silence for a brief instant. “I assume you have come seeking an end to this long battle?”

“Yes,” Victoire confirmed, her spear hitting the ground. “Will you help us?”

“If I can.” Thoon’s head tilted towards Victoire. “What do you desire to know?”