Weekdawn, 17th of Draconar, 11th year of the Stringless Era

  A gargant of metal and magical crystals stepped out of the ocean’s water. Hundreds of litres of salty liquid escaped the crevices within the stumpy front leg of the quadrupedal Precursor work of artifice. The wash spread to the nearby crowd. A particularly enthusiastic child had gotten too close and was almost ripped off his feet by the localized deluge.

  A silver trunk big enough to crush a house supported the child gently. “CAREFUL WHERE YOU STEP.” The gargant’s voice droned out from between its curved tusks. For how patient and gentle the god-machine was, it could not help its volume nor the trembles its steps created, as it advanced down the broad road of dirt and cobblestone.

  One of the machine’s massive ears flapped, powering cooling mechanisms that none understood in this age. Its blue eyes, entirely made of carved mana crystal, scanned the city around it. It approvingly tilted its head towards the new ornamentations that had been added to the pillars that flanked the great road.

  Although beautiful, the pillars were but crude craftsmanship compared to the god-machine and its destination. Two massive structures of silver and bronze metal rose over a dozen stories taller than any other structure in the city of Kumse. Their stepped shape and elegant angles further differentiated them from the simple houses of the modern inhabitants of the space. Too steep to be pyramids, yet too broad to be called towers, the two halves of the Station of Resting marked the centre of worship for the Cult of the Supernatural Elephant.

  The god-machine stepped between the two buildings. A vast variety of sidearms extended from both, the tips sparking with immense energy. All over the Supernatural Elephant, pieces of silver hovered off the pristine skin, revealing sockets carved from black rock and yet more mana gems. The marvel of artifice shimmied back and forth, until it stood at exactly the right angle and the various refuelling arms connected with it properly.

  “I THANK YOU FOR THE SERVICE ONCE MORE.” The Supernatural Elephant spoke.

  A High Priest answered, shouting loudly but not loud enough for most to hear. It must have been the same phrase as every year, something along the lines of: “And we thank you, wisest one, that you share your knowledge with us!”

  “THEN, IF YOU WISH TO LISTEN, I SHALL SHARE WITH YOU WHAT I HAVE CONTEMPLATED THIS YEAR.”

  The vast crowd was already in motion. The capital of Kumsyurt was never a small city. 12’000 souls called the port their home. It was strategically located at the southernmost point of the bay that isolated the peninsula to the east from the rest of the central continent to the west. Major land routes naturally went through there, the surrounding forests provided lumber for the construction of ships and houses, and the Supernatural Elephant made its landfall here every year. Naturally, it became a centre of culture and commerce.

  When word of the elephant’s approach travelled down from the north of the peninsula, the city always swelled to a truly immense size. Estimates had it that, for the week that the god-machine was present, Kumse became the largest city on the central continent, if not in the entire world. From the countryside and from the faithful of other countries, the people went on a pilgrimage to lay eyes upon the living relic of a long-forgotten civilization. Matching the dominance of the Midyurter culture, they were nearly entirely humans.

  A few even dared to stand before the Supernatural Elephant, to plead to be given access to the temple complex that the entity carried proudly upon its back. Not since the founding of the Cult had any been considered worthy of entering. Still, the current duke, ruler of Kumsyurt, and his 4 women made the traditional gesture. Gently, the god-machine denied them.

  After that, the priests had managed to set up the mysterious machines that allowed the Supernatural Elephant to project its voice via smaller crystals on ground level. Things quieted at that point, by simple virtue of the elephant’s voice no longer rattling windows. The people formed orderly queues, hoping to ask the god-machine a question in their personal pursuit of enlightenment. Members of the cult placed vast basins down beneath the Supernatural Elephant, to be ready to collect any of the water that would bead down the marvellous frame of the creature come rainfall.

  Oras finished the last sentence on his observation of the scene, waited for the ink to dry, then closed his journal. For a few more moments, he lingered on the rooftop, then sought shelter from the summer weather inside.

  The temple had been built from clay and wood, two materials that were abundant in this part of the world. Elaborate and careful design made the inside of the building pleasantly cool. The air smelled softly of incense. Mandalas had been painted under the curved ceilings of every chamber. Iconography of the Supernatural Elephant was present here and there, but as was typical, few actual icons of it existed.

  It was a god-machine, that much was clear to any and all that looked at it, but it did not claim to be their god, and they did not treat it that way. They were on a path to enlightenment together, for only wisdom was truly divine.

  Oras reached the innermost chamber. The mandala there was present as an extensive floor tiling, laid from various coloured, polished stones. In its stead, the six-segmented ceiling depicted six people. One was a human man, the other five women of five different races, a human, a String (or Stringless, in this age), a wolf-eared woman, a goblin and a gnome. They were each depicted with great detail and yet little distinctiveness.

  The first and only harem that had been allowed access to the temple.

  “For every human man of great worth, there shall be women five.” The voice of the priest echoed off the walls of the moderately sized chamber. He was an older man with hair that began to grey and a belly that strained the middle section of his plain robes.

  “So it says in the Proper Path of Relationships.” Oras bowed his head as he spoke, his heterochromic eyes trailing the priest as he walked forwards to the little shrine. He took in every little detail of the esoteric gestures used to lighten up a fresh incense stick. “Why do you wave it like that?”

  “An old man has his old habits,” the priest responded with a simple smile. Once the incense gleamed, he turned to the young man by his side. “Thank you for waiting.”

  “I thank you for making time for me, despite the grand occasion.”

  “Priests like I spend little time conversing with the Supernatural Elephant directly. We have generations worth of his wisdom written, and my peers will write down this year’s revelations as well.” The priest gestured at a set of chairs. “Please, sit down.”

  Oras did first, then so did the priest. A water basin between them rippled softly, before returning to stillness.

  “They say that the great men seek their personal little harem because we ought to emulate the greatest of our people.” The priest gestured upwards, at the gently judging eyes of the depictions of that man and his five women. “For most of us, one woman is as much as we can handle. It would be immoral to crave more than one can serve.”

  “I would not expand my reach faster than my ability allows,” Oras promised.

  The priest kept a calm, friendly exterior, but did not comment. “Look at your reflection, what do you see?”

  Lowering his gaze, Oras considered the question for a moment. “Am I supposed to list my features?”

  “Why do you think you should?” the priest wondered, passively.

  “A literal interpretation of the text - I am technically not human.”

  The face that looked back up at Oras was human in most of its features. He had the usually rounded ears, the nose and the lips, all in the right place. He was a good looking young man with high cheekbones and solid jawline. Black hair of a moderate length covered most of his ears. Short bangs left his forehead and nicely shaped brows open to view. It was the sharp eyes beneath that harboured the second clearest sign of his unusual nature. The right was green, the left one golden, and both of his irises had a slit pupil at the centre.

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  The larger giveaway was the layer of golden, smooth scales that covered the upside of his exposed forearms. It gradually vanished over the back of his hands and went no further up than his elbows. The rest of his body followed the usual look of a man. Growing up in the countryside had left him with a healthy amount of muscle. His skin was a little bit on the pale side, but not so much to be unusual for the area.

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  “Do you consider yourself not human for having been born Dragonblooded?”

  “No, I do consider myself human,” Oras answered simply. “My parents are human, my siblings are human, my people are human.”

  “Even if you weren’t it would not make the greatest of differences,” the priest answered. “Humans are the chosen of the Supernatural Elephant, that much is clear, but our worthiness does not make everyone else our inferior.” The priest cleared his throat and recited another well-known passage of the fundamental texts of the Cult. “Cherish all that are, for it is in One that the Herd is found.”

  Oras answered with a simple, curt nod. He had expected the priest to see it this way. Dogmatism was not in the blood of Midyurters. Religious and cultural texts were written with humans in mind, because the vast majority of the inhabitants of the forests of the central continent were human. That did not mean that they could not apply to other people. It would have been quite difficult if they were, considering the amount of other races that generations of the harem-seeking had brought to these shores.

  “We did drift from my question - what do you see in your reflection?” the priest asked again.

  Oras once more pondered the answer to that. He sorted his thoughts, wanting the answer to be neat and detailed. He also wanted it to be true. “I see a man that wishes to assure he owns what he has earned.”

  “A possessive sentiment - but one’s spouse is something that should be felt at least somewhat possessive about. After all, man was made to serve women…”

  “...and women to serve man,” Oras finished the sentence, when the priest trailed off. “We all have our duties.”

  The priest bobbed his head approvingly. “Exactly. It is good that you know to face the trials before you take the reward.” The priest leaned back, the wooden chair creaking a bit under the priest’s weight. “Now, I have one more question for you. Why did you seek out the cult in the capital? The first Showing of Worth is pretty much a formality, any local priest could have given you a small task.”

  “I wanted to do it right,” Oras responded, “and we agreed to marry when we set out for our adventure together.”

  “Wouldn’t your families prefer a ceremony at home?”

  Oras’ lips curled into a light smile, remembering the goodbye festivities. It had been a surprisingly large event for a farming town of less than 300 people. “To cite my mother: ‘I thought you married her 17 years ago’.”

  The priest let out a hearty laugh and smacked his belly. “Childhood love, is it? How delightful. Well then, I shouldn’t hold you back any longer. Sounds like you have waited long enough.” The priest reached out to a nearby shrine and pulled a paper off a stack. They were all covered in small, hand-drawn ornamentations. “As I said, the Showing of Worth for the first marriage is basically a formality - enough to show that you are serious, but nothing that would be deemed as insurmountable. If you were a carpenter, I would ask you to make a crib for your firstborn. If you were a mason, I would ask you to make a polished stone and to donate it to one of the cults. What should I ask of an adventurer?”

  His tone made it clear he was open for suggestions.

  Oras had come prepared. He pulled out his journal and scanned through the rumours he had picked up earlier in the day. One quickly caught his attention. “There are reports of a bandit sitting on a bridge, extorting people without any claim to the land.”

  “Mhm, harder than a first Showing of Worth usually would be, to fight for it… no, not harder, just more dangerous…” The priest rubbed his chin, then shrugged. “However, it is a worthy and sensical suggestion. Very well then, you will investigate the matter of this bandit and report back to me what you found and how you resolved it.”

  “Understood,” Oras stated.

  The quill scratched over paper, putting the challenge in writing. Oras received the ornate document with reverence. It was of great quality, thick and sturdy, meant to last a marriage’s lifetime. Pre-made lines allowed for it to be folded neatly. Oras placed it in the most secure spot inside his waist pouch.

  “Thank you.” The black-haired Dragonblood waited for permission to rise. A wave of the hand granted it.

  “Do not become overeager! Even the Supernatural Elephant brings wisdom only once a year!”

  Oras acknowledged the parting words with a glance over his shoulder, then made his way out of the temple and back out into the summer heat.

  The street in front of the building was busy and grew more so with every passing second. Stalls and shops had been put up to take advantage of the influx of the faithful and said faithful were slowly departing from where the Supernatural Elephant stood. There was only so much sense in looking at the god-machine from close-up.

  Oras scanned the nearby areas in search of his companion. When he found her, his mood slightly soured. Two men were hiding the majority of her from his view. There was something flirtatious in their body language.

  Rapid steps carried him over. “Theria,” he called out.

  Immediately, she made her way through the two men. To call her gorgeous would have been to understate the matter. Perfect got closer, but Oras considered it too unspecific. In lieu of better terms, calling her his favourite thing in the entire world would have to suffice.

  Theria was a woman of his exact age. They both had been born on the same day, 21 years and 16 days ago. Just one of many occurrences that often made it felt like they had been fated to end up together. She was a tall woman with sun-kissed skin. When she walked towards him, her red ponytail bobbed with every energetic step.

  She wore a light, dark cloak against rainfall and revealing clothes beneath to cope with the temperature. Her medium-sized breasts were prominently framed between the binding of her cloak and the leather strap that held her small top together. Her midriff was entirely bare, a tanned mastercraft of the human form. She was softly toned, enough to show the efforts of her life and not enough to in any form diminish the feminine charm of her curves. Loose pants strained slightly around her shapely hips as she walked.

  Her face matched her wonderful body. Heart-shaped and framed by the wild tresses of her rich, red hair, her features were arranged in a way that made Oras almost forgive the two men for trying to flirt with her. Who would not be attracted by those green eyes, that cute nose and those full lips? Not even the scar across her left eye did anything to diminish her beauty. If anything, this proof of a dangerous life made her even more adorable. The bow and quiver she carried on her rounded out the enticing danger she had to her.

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  The two men followed the scene of Theria walking up to Oras. They got the message when she put her arms around his neck and got on her toes. She was a tall woman, but he was a very tall man. “Ya can stop starin’ daggers at them,” she whispered to him. “I didn’t even get to tell them off before ya came out.”

  “Mhm…” Oras just hummed at that, then did focus entirely on her. “You sure you didn’t show off a little too much?”

  “I got it, so I’m showin’ it,” she drawled. “You were the one that said I look good with my midriff out.”

  A fair point to make and she did look fantastic. “I got my challenge.”

  Theria’s smile spread a little wider. “Okay, can we go already then? It’s gotta be somethin’ interestin’.”

  “Just investigating and dealing with that bandit we heard about.”

  “I think that’s pretty interestin’.”

  Theria leaned in a little closer. Instinctively, Oras put his arm around her back, aiding her in pressing her body as well against his as standing at a street corner allowed. He was mightily tempted to kiss her. It wasn’t like they had never done it before, they just had been holding back on it recently because their marriage was getting so close.

  He satisfied himself with studying the details of her face for a while. It was neither of them that ended the embrace. Rather, the rolling through of a cart forced them to stop standing in the way. “FIND A TAVERN!” the agitated driver shouted at them. “Stupid fucking young people, always loitering about the temple entrance…”

  “Mood ruiner,” Theria grumbled and made an obscene gesture at the man.

  “Quite,” Oras agreed. He kept his arm around his childhood friend and pulled her along. “Let’s get what we need.”

  “Uh, bro - we get what you need.” Theria knocked on the wood of her bow. “I got what I need.”

  “We could get you a better one,” Oras suggested. The bow she had on her was a parting present by her father and it also was a used one. As one of the hunters of the village, her father had an assembly of bows meant for game hunting. A new bow of a higher quality could no doubt be found among the adventuring shops of Kumse.

  “Let’s keep what I need for after what ya need, ‘cause ya got nothin’,” she reminded him.

  “I need to get you a linguistics trainer to scrub the accent out of your mouth.”

  “Oh, ya love it and ya know it!” She reached up to scratch the underside of his smooth chin. “We have a simple deal: you learn all the fancy talk and I caress your ears with the tones of home.”

  “I don’t remember signing that deal.”

  “Ya should - we figured this out years ago. The Dragon God gets your ambition and I get everythin’ else.”

  “Making yourself equal to a deity?”

  “At least when it comes to ownin’ you, yeah.” She suddenly grew quieter, a bit bashful. “Do ya not agree to that?”

  Oras could not resist the tomboy when she revealed her softer sides. “I absolutely do,” he gave and pat the pouch. “Alright, you win. Let’s get shopping.”