Chapter 21: Return of the King (Part 2)

[Clock - 21:45 | 09:45 PM]

[Calendar - 12/02/2003]

[Location - Croc Kingdom (Name Pending) - Old Gotham, Gotham City, New Jersey]

---

POV Change

Atlas - Jester

'He is back.' Atlas felt almost giddy- He almost felt like a proud child showing their parents something the drew. The only difference being the fact that Atlas did an awesome job! He had left the station with the [Dimension Door] spell, teleporting 500 feet towards the entrace of the Croc Kingdom by Foundation Station. He still had enouhh energy for a few other spells, and if necessary, he could use [Misty Step] to teleport out of harm's way. 'Finally...' With a sigh of relief, Atlas couldn't help but smile- floating around him thanks to the [Floating Figment] cantrip were these bags full of groceries, meats, non-perishables, and some greens that he had taken from a few different stores around Old Gotham, so as to not arouse suspicious. He was able to easily store the other things into his newly made (he is quite proud of it) Bag of Holding! A small one, sadly, it took him a few weeks to finally be able to make this thing and he had to use the leather of a magical beast to make it without it taking a thousand years...

He has a small confession to make...

The bag? It was made with the flesh of Solomon Grundy. Now, I know it sounds bad, but this was the only realistic option that he could take- it was either farm the old zombie guy of his flesh (It was almost identical to one of those mob farms in Minecraft) and skin to make a bag that has an internal space of 15 by 15 by 15 in a cubic shape! But it was full of food now, mostly non-perishables, while he took the perishables with him outside the bag because he made an oopsie when enchanting the Bag of Holding... He wrote the power word and rune for 'Time', but not 'Preservation', which made it kinda... not preserve shit inside? Well, it wasn't a problem for non-perishable food or inorganic items, but perishables like meat and vegetables would rot and decay at an accelerated rate. That was a little problem he couldn't solve without breaking down the item and starting again, so he decided not to bother with that, instead focusing on making a banquet for the return of their king! 'Heh, I wonder how he will react when he learns of the Kingdom's sacred animal.'

Ah, right. About 16 days ago or so, Atlas had returned to the Slaughter Swamp with friends and found exactly what he had been searching for: Crocodile eggs. And a mother! Cool, right? It took him a while to convince the mother to come along, but casting [Animal Friendship] with a lot of power made the spell last for a long, long time... It still hasn't worn off yet, and he doesn't know if it ever will. Anyway, her eggs all hatched and 55 new crocodiles greeted the world! He made sure to keep an eye out on them, and they have been growing very fast too, he even made a special place for them to live peacefully, although they could be seen walking around everywhere on the Croc Kingdom alongside their mother, bathing in the glorious artificial sun that Atlas had to modify to actually produce heat so the crocodiles could warm up too. He made Sobek's Crocodile Farm for them to relax in, making the artificial river that flowed through Croc Kingdom not only wrap around the picket fence little farm area but also serve as a place they could bathe in. Mindful of their animalistic nature, Atlas was making plans for when these big guys are mature enough to mate, he will basically take them to Slaughter Swamp and let them do their thing before taking them back, the females would lay the eggs and the males would go out to mate with the crocs of the swamp to keep the swamp's crocodilian population up to standards.

But now, every household has at least one crocodile!

And they're pretty tame, thankfully one of the people Waylon had sent them was originally from Florida- Now, I don't want to sound like a stereotyping asshole, but Buck was actually the stereotypical Florida Man. He had grown up in a crocodile farm (I swear, I'm not making this up) and loved crocodiles, so when Atlas offered him the job of 'Croc Keeper', he jumped into it! Even though he lacked a hand, he was much better at taking care of the animals than Atlas was, and as a prize for his hard work Atlas gave him a scarf with a crocodile sown into it, that allowed him to have the spell [Speak with Animals] active at all times! He actually cried when one of the little crocs called him 'Dad' when he was feeding them- Atlas didn't have the heart to explain to him that they weren't calling him dad per say, that was what the spell translated it to, most likely they were calling him with the sounds they use to call their mother, but because he was a man, it translated to 'Dad'. But Atlas saw how happy the guy was and decided to just let him be happy about it! He stretched his fingers out and hummed as he floated down the tunnel after teleporting back to Foundation Station and casted [Dimension Door] once more just because.

Ah, right!

Atlas now is the proud owner of a soul with Three Rings! He absolutely loved how these rings are big enough and compact enough to grant him a lot of internal magical energy. He could cast 1st level spells like they were cantrips, and he could cast actually cantrips as easily as breathing! He was also learning the first steps of Metamagic, you know that thing Sorcerers can do in Dungeons and Dragons? It was like, an advanced control over his magic, and he has been traning on that! At least he learned one Metamagic ability, and that was how to change the type of energy his spells could hold, like how he changed the energy of a [Fireball] into an explosive ball of acid. It was fun, and technically he now had tapped into the powers of Sorcery.

He will study more about it later, right now he has a banquet to start.

"I'm back~!" Appearing right above Isis Fountain, Atlas floated down with [Fly] and stared at the tables that were set by the three cooks of the House of Hathor. The cooks of the House of Hathor were Abigail, mother of Adam, and two other additions to the Croc Kingdom: "Here you guys go, I'll go by later today and give the non-perishables to ya'll." He graciously floated towards them and started helping them- magic is capable of many things, and cooking is of course one of them, he just needs to get a bit creative with how he uses his magic to cook. "Let's get this all started-" He turned around, floating and spinning in a complete 360 as he looked for Waylon, only to find him and Buck talking to each other while Waylon held a baby croc in his hands.

It was kinda cute.

"Havin' fun, your croc-ness?" Floating upside-down in front of Waylon as he tickled the little croc in his hands, Atlas smirked up at the king of their developing empire: "It's kinda early but I prepared this whole speech for you got back, about how fucking tiring it is to make an empire and how I spent three nights trying to figure out how to declare independence and separate us from the USA while in USA soil, and well, I've come up with ridiculous ideas but that's beside the point now... All I wanna say is... Well, welcome back, King." With a short bow, Atlas pulled out a crown from the bag attached to his hip: "Also, I made you a crown. It was a bitch to enchant because I had to make magical gold- You don't want to know what I did to get magical gold, but it was a pain. Anyway, when you wear this, you'll get a boost to Intelligence and your mind will be protected most mind fuckery, I'll need better materials and a lot more precious gems to make a better crown, but that little thing will be able to at least keep your thoughts from being read by anyone." Shrugging, Atlas cracked his fingers: "It took a few... thousand dollars to get it right, but hey, the least I could do."

Atlas was trying to undermine his work. He spent two weeks on the crown and what he made nothing short of a powerful artifact, the gem on the center of the crown was this emerald that he had stolen- it was the piece of one of the largest emeralds he had ever seen, the rest of the gem was turned into dust that he had added to the molten gold that he turned into the crown. He added a few other pieces of gems that he could find, and even turned an entire jewelry's worth of diamonds from the Diamond District of Gotham into dust that he kept pushing his magic into by castinng [Make Magic Item] on the dust and wasting the equivalent of the energy necessary to cast a 9th level spell into the diamonds, daily for two weeks. And then he used that magical diamond dust and amplified the crown through a process that used his own blood.

Hemocraft. Blood Magic.

In the end, Atlas wasted a lot of time and effort, just to almost fail. He was prepared for that, however, and was able to stabilize the crown befoore it exploded into tiny pieces, it was meant to have magical abilities beyond what it has, which was why Atlas considered it a failure. If I had to describe it to you like it was an item from Dungeons and Dragons, it would be a powerful magic item at the very least, giving a flat +5 to Intelligence while wearing it and permanently applied the effects of the 8th level spell [Mind Blank], a powerful Abjuration spell that would render someone immune to mind reading and emotion reading, as well as making someone immune to being found by scrying, Divination spells, and any other mean of finding information about the person affected by the spell. The spelll normally has a duration of 24 hours, but Waylon will be under this spell for as long as he wears the crown.

If this was a failure in his eyes, image a success?

"..." Waylon held the crown in his hands and Atlas remembered- he had turned off the [Subtitles] thing! He would only turn it on if he needed to speak to Baytor, and... should he turn it on here? Well, why not? "[Waylon Jones (Surprised, Speechless): I... thank you?]" He took the crown in his hands and stared at its golden green jagged sharp edges, resembling the teeth of a crocodile: "[Waylon Jones (Happy, Excited, Surprised): I will wear this with pride, as the Kinng Croc... my loyal Jester.]" He looked into his eyes for a few moments, Atlas wondering if he could've made something better while Waylon seemed lost in thought before he had a realization- and he smirked, a grin mischievous and downright predatory smile that made Atlas feel like he was in danger, until Waylon said this: "[Waylon Jones (Mischievous, Smug): Heh, don't worry, I'll give you my special thanks later.]"

...did he just-

While Atlas was stun locked mid air, Waylon walked away with the same smug smile on his face.

Buck simply looked back and forth between him and Waylon before he, very bluntly, asked: "...are you two gonna, like, fuck?" He had his only hand patting the big momma crocodile while looking at him with raised eyebrows, and when Atlas did not answer, he simply looked at him up and down before humming and saying: "Good luck with that big guy, you gonna need it."

...gods help him.