Teaching the Dragon God
Marcus was amazed by the interior of the demon room, roughly an octagon each wall held a large stone tablet, each filled with tight characters that he did not recognize. His eyes swept past each tablet studying the details of each as each was a unique presence. Where wall one was a tablet of dense characters the second was instead pictographs of some sort, complex symbols each with a small line of characters under the picture. The third wall was a mix of words and pictographs, these pictures seemed like small geographic markers, perhaps map markers of a sort? The fourth wall was a large pictographs showing three groups of individuals, of the varied people, Marcus recognized only one, the large dragon in the middle group was obviously the Dragon Lord.
Turning his gaze to the walls beside the door, he saw more strange symbols that seemed to call to his subconscious, the pictures were like a chart detailing something that in his very bones he felt was vastly important. The last two marked walls were a large mural of the final battle of the gods war, he recognized many elements from the Dragon Lords vision carved into the lengthy tablet. Looking around he could not help but gawk at what Marigolds family had done, short of destroying the room this knowledge would be vastly harder to erase than the churches archives. Turning his attention to Marigold herself she seemed different in here, like this place was a fortress where she could relax.
"What is all this?" The words slipped from Marcus' mouth as he reached out to trace the figure of a woman who stood along side the old Dragon Lord, something about her spoke to his soul, like he should know her, perhaps the old dragons consort or ally? He shook his head turning to glance at the other stones, the characters were not in any language he knew so the contents were a mystery.
"This my Lord is your gift to humanity, each tablet contains either past knowledge or insight into human history. From start ta finish we have Language, Elements o' Naure, Vaults o' Power, tha True Pantheons, tha Guide to Body Cultivation, and lastly tha Fall o' tha Gods." Rattling off each title Marcus smiled, the first and fifth stone seemed the most important at the moment but he turned to the pantheon stone and asked Marigold, "Can you list them for me, I need to relearn the language."
Marigold nodded and motioned to the top group that had a background of a sun lit sky, "This be the Pantheon o' Light. Tha large guy in front is Helatrax, he leads them and is the patron o' us humans. He also is a war god, go figger. Beside him is the six primes o' light, Lusana Goddess o' tha Sun and Fields, Sandril God o' Commerce and Deals, shadiest bugger o' tha pantheon. Then there's Umilex, Patron o' Dwarves an' Blacksmiths, Estrelie Goddess o' Elves an' Woodlands. Finally on either end is tha twins Frel and Gune, supposedly they be the gods o' Time an' Space."
Dropping her hand to the middle group which stood amongst the throng of what could only be mortals on a world, "Yer Pantheon of Mortals containing the Dragon God yerself, lord o' Dragons an' Honesty, tha woman ya cannae take yer eyes off is the Goddess Zee, Mistress o' tha Wild Ones, an' yer old consort. Beside ye both is Damak God o' Honor an' Truth, his consort Luna, Mistress o' tha Moon an' Northern Winds. On either end are tha eternal enemies. Gruck, God o' Goblinkin an' Murder, an' his foe Gilgas God o' tha Beastfolk and Hunts."
Frowning she lastly pointed to the group below, "Lastly be tha Dark Gods. There's no order to these ones, they all stand to topple earth an' heavens. This ugly bloke is said to be Tyrix, can't rightly say bloke though, it's not male nor female. It's tha patron o' Demons an' Chaos. Tha whore beside it be Quellia, Goddess o' Devils an' Deviants. Beneath those two monsters be their children, if you can picture it. Loss, God o' Misery. Yule, God o' Plagues. Zewel, Goddess o' Torture. Omoul, God o' Shadow Elves."
Marigold shivered looking at the group of monsters and Marcus could understand why, the only humanoid one was the devil goddess but even her beauty was on a level that was closure to something horrific, like even just earning her favor would suck out your soul. The rest were barbaric monsters, barely humanoid but all horrific. Whoever carved their likeness was either amazingly imaginative or unbelievably unlucky to have seen these freaks personally. Even Marcus himself regretted viewing the carvings.
Turning to Marigold he gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile, "Alright enough about what goes bump in the night, do you understand these characters on the first stone, would you teach me the written word of humans?"
Smiling she nodded motioning to a short round table of chiselled stone in the center of the room, chalk and slate were used instead of paper and ink. Marcus proved an able student, even as the day stretched into two then onto a week, then a month. Each day the pair would leave the cold cradle of the village to share their time in the stone vault. Ocassionally Seth would come with the pair, especially when Marigold spoke of the gods war or the violent relations between the light and dark pantheon, but most often it was just the two, which suited Marcus just fine. Still as much as he enjoyed her company he did focus on the lessons, though when she dipped heavily into her accent he couldn't help but stare at her, recalling that initial feeling he had at her presence.
The month turned into two, then a third had come and gone. He was quick learning the written language and often lost himself in the stone tablets, about half a month prior he had started to work on his body cultivation alongside Marigold who he learned was already at second stage mortal tier, well... originally she had been first stage but having someone else to train and practice with had pushed her breakthrough. Living in a normal village didnt really have a need for cultivation, first stage had been enough to 'encourage' the lecherous old drunk to not try anything funny with the orphaned girl.
With the ability to read the worlds basic common language he was able to study the tablets more fully, not that there was alot he couldn't already figure out. For example the elements, there were the usual four prime elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water. Beyond those four came the three mortal elements, Wood, Metal, Dao. Lastly was the three divine elements, Time, Space, Spirit. Of course there was the side elements that included the male Yang, female Yin, positive Light, and negative Dark. Most of the stories had these elements that in one form or another influenced a cultivator. Sadly for Marcus other than Fire, being of the dragon bloodline, he had no real clue what other abilities he had. As for Marigold she seemed to focus on Earth and the mortal influence of Metal, it was little wonder with her stage one cultivation she had easily knocked him around when he was first born.
What worried them the most was the next tablet, the next vault should only be a week away from the village, but it was deeper in the forest than most mortals dared to tread. Wolf-spiders would seem like mere house flies compared to the monstrous beasts that laired in that area. So until they reached the first bottleneck at Stage Four, they decided to focus on training, for Marigold, training was something she had worked into her daily routine, for Marcus who had barely maintained a basic exercise routine in his old life, the harsher cultivating really took alot of wind out of his sails and he often slipped from meditating to ogling Marigold, which got him a few rougher encouragements to focus.
With the time passing slowly, winter soon fell upon the village. This was a very harsh period for the mortal villagers, Marigold and to a lesser degree Seth would help their neighbors each day, clearing snow, cutting fire wood and similar chores to earn extra bits of food. Marcus himself was suffering. It came as no real surprise to him that the dragon bloodline really didnt suit the cold climate, while the siblings worked the odd chores he focused on keeping their shared home in shape to protect them from the elements. Marcus truly wondered how these folk survived these harsh conditions. Without heaters, thermal blankets, not even big fuzzy socks or mufflers. He just didnt see how this lot kept alive in these cold days, yet they did. Day after day as the season dragged on, Marcus felt his own body growing more and more lethargic, was he going to hibernate for the winter? If he had to, he really wished sleep would come quicker to end his hours of freezing misery.
The true light in these dark days for him was Marigold, much like the villagers she showed a zeal for surviving, she never complained, never cursed the villagers who softened provided less reward than agreed upon for their chores powered through by her and Seth. Even the old priest seemed to have vanished as Marcus often saw the church doors wide open and snow freely collecting in the derelict interior. Seth later grumbled and revealed the old coot often wintered in a nearby town which often gave free shelter to the poor so they didnt freeze to death in the streets, everyone knew the old geezer was scamming that towns good will but each year they allowed the old priest to keep spending the cold season snug amongst their own beggars and hard cases.
Once again time slipped by, the cold of winter surrendered to the warmth of Spring, the villagers began the early prep work for the sowing of their fields. Marcus had finally caught up with Marigold, the pair using their sparring to discuss the trip in a few weeks, hashing out where to go and how to sustain themselves. The thaw was brisk, but there could be storms still and the roads would be choked with mud. On this day they sparred free from the winds in the old shrine. Marigold had cleaned up the slime and it once again looked like a hallow vault. The pair was exchanging blows in a simple boxing, or rather, brawling fashion. Marigold often strengthened her body and arms with the tedious tasks of maintaining the shrine, with a sparring partner, her stagnated cultivation once again rose.
"From the map it looks like there's another town near the vault, do you know anything about it?" Marcus asked her as she deflected another one of his punches, her own coming lightning quick to jab him in the belly and blew the wind from his lungs.
Panting softly, the young woman wiped the sweat from her brow and turned to the side, eying the accumulated supplies, including a charcoal rubbing of the map. "Aye a wee bit, I'm hopin' we don't have ta go near it ta be honest. Once upon a time they use ta be our closest friends, but they've since abandoned us for generations. Most that go and trade with the bastards come back injured and with far less exchanged goods as they aught, made everyone wonder if they got a bandit bunch runnin' things. Not real fond of beast folk either, I once 'eard that they got themselves one o' those slave traders now, fact is they seem ta have more and more slaves each passin' year."
"What are those slaves doing? Gotta be hard for a small town to feed and house a slave population." Marcus replied catching his breath and walking beside her, looking down at the map in thought.
"That's the rub, the number o' slaves don't seem ta be goin' up any. Elders originally thought they had some big prancie ass royalty contract to build near by, but there's been no construction either, just a lot of slaves comin' in and vanishin' into thin air."