B.T.V. -- Session 04 Epilogue: Dragon's Zi

The Rise of Zi





Asher and Finndo were eating a late supper at The Carriage Crashed Inn, the former enjoying a hotpot, the latter making tougher work of a steak of uncertain origin.


“Can immortal men be human?” Asher had asked, a question that seemed to give the Amberite pause, and cause him to reflect before admitting he could not know.


“To me, being human means having a certain lifetime, followed by death, as a natural order,” Asher explained, adding, “How old is Selador? I cannot say for sure, but for some reason I always think of him being 7,000 years old, though that’s an incomprehensible number for me to consider.”


“I would think closer to 9,000,” Finndo mused. He could offer no notion of his own age, given that time passed differently in different places.


“We are Final Men,” he said, "the last made."


Turning the conversation back to Asher, Finndo suggested that an audience should be sought by him with the dragon Ghilong, who had visited the Drifter once before. Finndo confirmed neither he nor Gerard had been able to see or hear the dragon as he spoke with Asher, but that a fierce wind had blown that could have torn the roof off the Fortress Inn, where they were at the time.


Asher related what he had spoken to Ghilong about, and admitted that the dragon had, indeed, played a trick with Finndo’s hat using the wind, as the Amberite had suspected. The Drifter considered the suggestion but briefly. He had already planned to do this, so he made his farewell to Finndo and went to his room upstairs, and reached out to the dragon, making contact surprisingly easily, almost as if he had been expected.


“What is it I can do for you?” the huge creature asked as it coiled in the air outside the room’s window.

The conversation started in a frustrating way for Asher, but as it continued, he found questions he could ask which Ghilong would answer. He mentioned principal families of races to Asher, including the Obsidian of the Outremere and the Ethera or the Dusken, who the Drifter knew as Jenoine, who were invaders to Axildusk, as were any other principal families present there.


“Like you, I am of Axildusk,” said the Dragon of the East Wind.”


In their world, he continued, the Jenoine stood against the Draegerans who ruled Axildusk. Previously, the Draegerans had been known by other names, the Sinardin, the Sindarin, the Eldar and the Dark Eldar, and between them the Dur Alphmar.


At one time, humans had played a useful role upon the world, and at other times warred against the elves. Fighting between the Eldar and Dark Eldar allowed humans to take control of the world, but over time men fell again.


Vaxxus, the brother of Selador, was new to Ghilong, but seemed an enemy of everyone, or so he claimed. The dragon described Lored Mann as “an immortal who is not present,” though he had been responsible for the creation of men, not the Gods mortals worshiped. The same applied to Lored Veer, who had created the Veer, now known as Draegerans.


"Humans", Ghilong continued, "represented both life and death, but that didn’t mean Asher had to be exclusively about that."


Humans “must use your lives as best you can in the allotted time. Wise, then, not to waste time.”


While the Amberites might be the principal family of men, the dragon stated, that did not mean they would rule the humans of Axildusk, and he asked what future Asher sought.


“I would be the equivalent of a dragon to men,” Asher said, with more confidence than perhaps he felt at the moment, but would grow into.


“Kings were once known as Khans,” Ghilong replied, “You will be the Zi of Zis.”


At the window, Asher Zi sees lavender coloured trees begin to appear outside, and the vista changed from the cityscape of Adhrilanka to a red and black sky. Zi realizes he is no longer in the capital, but upon a mountain’s summit, in an austere but richly-appointed throne room, gold-leaf shoji screens here and there. He did not pause to wonder where he had ever learned the word “shoji.”

“This is Sammisen Tower, so it is called,” Ghilong informed him. Zi steps through the window and emerges on a balcony that seems to wrap around the tower. But as the dragon points out, it is not a tower as such.


“They, the Draegerans, call it a tower. We know better, don’t we.”


“It is…a pagoda?” Zi asked, and the dragon nodded.

“Now you know more than you did. I am pleased.”


The human knew somehow that the land he was now in was called Scythe—but the land was far different that he might have at first thought, for it was an island floating in the sky far about the continent of Banners, and the pagoda was on a mountain that itself floated near the island but with no connection to it.


“You are an island, an island in the sky,” Ghilong said, adding mischievously that Zi had no way off.


“You would beg another gift of me? You will need a drake, one that can fly. Then a drake you must have. This poses a problem. You are Asher Zi, but to a drake you are Asher."


“There was to be a future for you, but not here in Axildusk, but elsewhere,” Ghilong then revealed, and Zi experiences flashes of that other existence, of being different men and even not-men.


“You were a king of men. Perhaps you will be a king of men,” the dragon said, somewhat obtusely, though Zi believed he knew what the celestial creature meant. Zi expressed concern that this other Zi, known as “Tuan,” had taken unto himself the memories and experiences of others to use for his own purposes.


“They did so willingly,” Ghilong responded. “They all had a choice. He asked of them a sacrifice.”


Zi sees, too, an image of his mother, but in this image she wears a helm and armour of steel, and a dragon coils near her. The he realizes someone has clapped outside the throne room, in the Draegeran fashion, seeking admittance, and he goes back in.


Climbing out of a stairwell in the corner of room is a strange man, a heavily armoured one, who smells of great powers.


This one, who calls himself a “Doctor,” stated, “I am here because it is necessary.”

The dragon is showing Zis meaningful moments from a life he had not lived, but was somehow connected to, the Doctor explains. He was not here for Zi’s benefit, but as a witness.


Addressing Ghilong, the Doctor observes, “You are taking this one.”


The dragon answered, “He gives of himself.”


The Doctor chides, “You are inexperienced in these things. Why do you do it?”


“Because I can,” Ghilong declares, the wind blowing through the throne room, hardly stirring Zi’s hair, which he notices suddenly seems longer than before, but also has force enough to nearly tear the mask from the Doctor, revealing a disfigured face beneath. The Doctor departs, and Ghilong explains, “He is an Outremere, one of the Obsidian. There are worse.”

Doctors dealt in matters of unreality, the dragon continued. Should Zi meet a Cossack, also of the Obsidian, the danger would be much greater, for they dealt in damnation. Doctors dealt the Annofutures that were the future, and Corsairs, another type of Obsidian, the Protopasts that were the past. The Tieflings were also of the Obsidian, though he did not explain their motivation.


Ghilong had shown Zi things that might have been but were not to be, and the Obsidian were jealous of their prerogatives, he asserted. And Doctors, he added, “Manipulate as they observe.”


“Behold,” the dragon suddenly proclaimed, then twice more as Zi tried to comprehend what Ghilong meant. Then he saw one of the screens altering into a silver mirror, and wondered, for while he recognized himself, his accoutrements had changed considerably. The stubble he had begun to sport upon his face had emerged into a beard, and his hair was even longer than it had been. His nodachi warmed and transformed into a sword of more conventional style, suited for one hand or two, with hammerhead quillons. He wears armour know of green dragon scales, but also sees within it the ectoplasm and black plasm that had composed the protections he wore as a Drifter. Spikes emerged from the pauldron on his right shoulder, the three Dygosa claws he used as throwing weapons molded anew. His emitter is gone, but he feels within himself new powers to manipulate ghostlight without the need for a physical focus. In his left clenched hand was a small ball of ghostlight, and behind him he saw a new draconian figure flying, ghostlight emerging from its eyes and mouth. This winged creature then became a bipedal figure, perhaps seven and a half feet tall, appearing much as if he might be of one of the tribes of the Empire, though none Zi knew, and this newcomer was um’Peka, his drake that Ghilong had promised, but in another life, a lizard-like creature known as Ah Peku.

Then another Doctor intruded into the throne room, this one calling himself Fate, and explaining the prior one had been Doom. “By the Light of Fate, these things can never be foretold,” the Doctor proclaimed.

“Things now can never be as foretold. You are unravelling the future and claiming it for your own. “The serpent, it changes things to suit its own purpose, but this may suit you. You are responsible for your own fate.”


Asher might have found these words trite, but Zi knew them as profound, though he could not explain why.


“Now I have given you your gifts,” Ghilong declared as he departed.


um’Peka changes into his winged form again, and they go aloft, giving Zi, already amazed to be riding a drake in flight, his first view of Scythe as a hold. He sees two other dependent islets, one for the Vineyards Tower, the other for the e’N’varr ruler of Scythe, the Shadowtouched Yevien. Inns are scattered around, near Gates, round craters that seemed to be the entry to Banners below, as well as huge Fonts he presumed must provide drinking water. He sees and airship descending through a river as it neared Anceer Gate. A large manufactory is also apparent.

As they descend near an inn known as the Wayward Winds, um’Peka warns Zi he should refer to his companion as an Arneal or, if such a creature was already present, as a Dygosa.


They enter the inn and Zi orders a red wine, which draws surprise from a Teckla servant, who still obliges the human. Moments after he receives his drink, a Dragonlord enters, seeming half composed of sharp blades, including a helmet that seemed to cover much of his face. His skin is a bluish hue.

“What is that you’re drinking?” the Dragon asks, as he himself sips a blue vintage Zi has not seen before. Zi explains, then after expressing interest in the blue wine, is invited to the newcomer’s table. He notices the Dragonlord has several tomes seemingly shackled to his waist.


“I work at the factory,” the Dragon explains. The volumes plot the courses of the royal islands above banner, one for each of the e’N’varr lords.


A brunya, nearly 10 feet tall, entered the bar about this time, and ambled his ursine figure over to the bar, smoking a pipe along the way.

“These books would be most valuable,” um’Peka observed, drawing Zi’s attention back to the Dragonlord. “It is wise someone so formidable guards them.”


Zi explains he is the holder of the Sammisen Tower, but the Dragon refuses to believe him. Then, he challenges the human, and they step outside to cross swords.


Zi draws first blood with a. thrust, but the Dragon replies with a slice that cuts off the human’s right ear, leaving blood spewing forth. Still, he manages a weak counterstrike the scores the flesh of the Dragon’s left arm.


“Are you satisfied?” the Dragonlord demands, surprising Zi, since his opponent had been the one to take offence and offer challenge.


“Perhaps one more pass,” Zi replies, more coolly than he feels, recalling similar words his friend Selador had spoken to one of his opponents in a duel.


Zi manages another cut, this time to the Dragon’s upper chest, then each misses the other.


“Are you satisfied?” the Draegeran demands anew, and Zi replies, “Even a human can learn. I am satisfied.”


“You need to staunch that wound,” the Dragonlord offers thoughtfully, and Zi applies a green silk scarf.


A Teckla woman, a servant at the inn who seems unfazed by the injury Zi has sustained, sews his ear back on. The human then quaffs a curative that Finndo had given him, which fuses the ear back into place, and Zi is confident that his appearance will not be permanently marred.


After he returns to sit again with the Dragon, his former opponent introduces himself.


“My name is Naymar. I carry and guard the journals.”


Zi is, as usual in such circumstances, pleased how Draegerans seem able to shake off conflicts and even become cordial after an encounter involving weapons.


“This is as it should be,” Naymar observed. “These charts are not for everyone.”


However, he invited Zi to seek him out again, adding he travels from island to island. Zi thinks otherwise, but is content to keep that to himself for the moment.


Then, a Quinnial walks in, its head covered with black and white stripes. While taller than Zi, it is dwarfed by the Brunya as the Quinnial joins him at the bar.

Then, an even stranger sight appears in the doorway, a tall figure bearing a disproportionately broad double-bladed axe, wearing a helm covering his face down to the mouth and with a fine chain cape over his left arm. He has tall boots as well. He is near seven feet tall, and while a few inches shorter than that, could well be Draegeran. “Of what house are you?” Naymar calls to the axeman.

“I’m just here for a drink,” the figure answers, and Zi changes his opinion. Somehow, he seems human, for who would not reveal his house, save perhaps a Yendi.


“You may drink, I suppose, if you wish,” Naymar conceded, and he joins the Dragonlord and Zi at their table.


“It was a long flight,” the axeman observed as the Dragon stared at him. He denies coming by airship or teleport, puzzling Naymar.


“I am a Brunya,” comes a call from the bar. “Have you heard of my people?”


“I am newly arrived,” the newcomer admitted. “I am Axewing.”


“What do you know of this Axewing?” the Quinnial questioned the Brunya. “He is a great slayer, so it is said. It is said he is seen in the skies. Now I have seen him, I think it is his armour.”


Zi had noted the stars that adorned a deep blue or black section of his armour at the top of his chest as well and staring into it because slightly disoriented.


“I am Thermat,” the Quinnial added.


“I’ve heard of you,” the Brunya said to Axewing. “I have not heard much. Who is the sorcerer who made it?”


“It was a gift.”


“I believe it,” the ursine replied. “It moves.”


“So tell me about this place.”


The Brunya answered, “The island? It belongs to the royal house of e’N’varr.” Axewing asked of any wars in the offing.


“War? On an island? It is not big enough for a war.”


Zi suspected that, should Axewing choose, he could prove the opposite. He asked about the Brunya and Quinnial’s story.


“We obtain things for people,” the Brunya offered. “We are collectors.”


“I’ve met people like you before,” Axewing countered. Zi suspected that Axewing also understood the context of the Brunya’s statement.


Zi engages the newcomer in conversation, and the axeman explains, “I serve the light to extinguish the darkness.”


“Ah. Is Vaxxus your enemy, then?”


“That name is known even here, then.”


Axewing then offered a story about a Zi he had known, named Tuan, from a world outside Axildusk known as Zomb. Zi knew who he meant, but that was an unravelled future, and he had little concern for it.


Um’Peka asked, “How did you come to be on the island?”


“My mount.”


“Ah, he is a bird,” the drake responded, and Zi thought he could see an inner cringe from Axewing at such a description. He explains his mount if a gryphon which, viewed from the front, would resemble an eagle and, from the rear, a lion. Zi has trouble imagining such.


He had come to Axildusk at the behest of a Doctor. “It was Fate that delivered me here.”


At those very words, the door to the bar flies off its hinges and the Brunya, the Quinnial and an assortment of other Tribesmen barge in. Axewing rises and goes to confront the intruders. Zi, too, gets to his feet, but spots that Thermat carries a crossbow in his hands. Having seen the devastating effects of this weapon, and the overwhelming number of opponents, Zi reaches for one of his Claws and throws at the moment the bolt is loosed.


At that moment, though, time seems to freeze as Doctor Fate appears, his glowing system thrust out from his hands.


“My name was spoken, Asher Zi. Is this to be a common thing?”


Zi points to Axewing, and says the two had only been comparing recent histories.


“Ah, you are the Traveller, the Outremere,” Doctor Fate told Axewing. “This is where you are most suited?”


“I will see,” Axewing responded.


Doctor Fate remarked, “Asher seeks to be the monarch of humans on this world. This world is held by two Noble thoughts.”


To Zi, the Doctor notes, “This one has paid the price to be here.”


Turning back to the axe wielder, he said, “Your place here is assured, now you have paid the price and received the Gift. The means by which you lost your limb you haunt you here, but it will bring you compensation.”


Zi had not even realized Axewing’s metal cape hid the fact his left arm was missing. Then he realizes time has resumed its normal course as a bolt tears into his shoulder, while his Claw, in turn, enters the Quinnial’s left eye, travels through his brain and exits out the back to imbed itself in a wall. Thermat drops, instantly killed.


A Panzer rushes at Axewing, preparing his staff for a decanting, a plasmic fire igniting upon its head.

Axewing deploys his Corona of Retaliation, a magical effect that reflects any such sorcerous attach upon the decanter, and an instant later the Panzer knocks down one comrade, a Dygosa, and takes another, a stout Mast, with him as he flies out the door.

Then a Brack entered, its hide formidable armour, the horn on his face a terrible weapon in its own right, but he wields a mighty hammer. Axewing confronts this foe. Meanwhile, the Dygosa has regained his feet, and is preparing to cast what appears to be lightning of some sort, and Zi knows his new target.

The Brack gestures for Axewing to take the honour of the first attack and he does so, landing a stout blow with his weapon but leaving the Tribesman unconcerned. However, a moment later he swings wide, hitting a table instead of Axewing and demolishing it. This seems to leave the Brack dumbfounded, and Axewing scores a hit again, though not as severe.


Zi, meanwhile, has hurled his second claw at the Dygosa, digging deep into its upper leg. The human’s third and final Claw enters the Tribesman’s left temple, finishing the creature.

Axewing strikes the Brack for a deep gash, and then quicker than the eye can follow a shallower wound. The Brack tried to answer, but fails.


“Hold, cease, stop!” the Brunya, seemingly the leader of the gang, shouts from the doorway, having seen three of his followers slain in a quarter of a minute, and the humans seemingly unconcerned by being outnumbered. Zi recalls his Claws, and they slam into the mountings on his pauldron. He weighs the sword in his hands, but takes no immediate action, and Axewing too seems willing to abide by a truce.


“You men are truly as you appear to be,” the Brunya admitted. “This is most unfortunate. Your abilities are beyond ours. How is it possible?”


“I cannot speak for my friend,” Zi answered. “Mine comes from the gift of a dragon.”


The Brunya seems unimpressed by that claim.


“You,” the ursine said, turning to Axewing again. “You have only one arm. Why have you not been restored?”


The Panzer limps back in through the open doorway.


“It cannot be restored,” Axewing replied. “It was taken by Mournblade. Uttering that name, the human saw a sudden vision of a seductive feminine form, holding a might blade, but Axewing understood the spectre was the blade itself.

“And what of those that you slay?” the Brunya inquires. “Are they lost?”


Axewing says his weapon claims no souls, and the Brunya explains that, in that case, he will see the revivification of Thermat, though that would be expensive.


The Brack interjects, “My father was missing a hand for many years.” But after joining Brunya’s band, he had earned enough to allow that to be restored.


“Your armour, is it Draegeran? Are you Jenoine?”


Brunya asks, “Is this true? Are you Jenoine?”


“I am not Jenoine,” Axewing counters in a flat tone.


“Perhaps they can help us,” the Brack suggests to the Brunya.


“Do not involve others in our business,” the Brunya warned. He explained, though, that he and his fellows and their villages were being plundered by the e’N’varr Lord Peloi, the commander of privateers.


“Perhaps we will help you in this,” Axewing tentatively offers, and Zi is glad he did. Removing Peloi would be desirable, given his voracious contempt for humans. “We should go with them,” um’Peka advises Zi.


The Brunya, noting he and his brave crew, for as new allies Zi no longer thought of them as bandits, had a small skiff by which they could return to Banners below. “We will meet you below, below Hanging Rock,” the chieftain says.


When they had departed, a Teckla servant offered faint praise. “You fight well for humans.”


“We fight well for any race,” Axewing answered matter-of-factly. Zi, recalling his earlier drubbing at the hands of the Dragonlord, isn’t so sure this praise should apply to him as well.


The Teckla woman provides valuable assistance as well, removing the bolt from Zi’s shoulder and applying a poultice and bandage.


Axewing meanwhile sees two Orcas enter, one over eight feet tall and brawny to boot.


“You’re Axewing,” the big one remarked. I’ve heard of you. How did you come here?”


“I fell,” Axewing replied drily.


“I work for the Royal House of e’N’varr. Are you a mercenary?”


Axewing denies he is.


The big Draegeran would not be deterred. “Even those who fight for causes must have money. I heard two Draegerans were found dead, and the knellbirds found them a week later. Too late for revivification. We Orca travel and learn more than most. Things are not always as they seem.”


“I’m afraid I am currently engaged,” Axewing demurred again.


The Teckla woman, finishing her work on Zi, tells him he and his new friend should be careful outside the inn. “We’re used to trouble here, but elsewhere it will bring an investigation.


“Should you return to Scythe, you are welcome here, if you can find us.”


Zi has only just rejoined Axewing when the former felt a psychic contact from Finndo. The Amberite reveals certain deaths had occurred at the Gathering of Dragons, and that Kweneroish of Banners had been severely wounded. Several of the Royal Dragons remained opposed to Elric’s ascension to the throne, and the path to Emperor for the Melnibonean would not be as easy as hoped. However, he did win some supporters as well.


Zi explains what has become of him, and mentions his new companion, who Finndo recalls is a friend of his Uncle Gerard. Being on Banners might prove helpful for Elric’s cause, Finndo allows, and Zi mentions they already move to seek out Peloi and bring an end to his days.


“Don’t hesitate to call upon us,” Finndo adds.


After breaking contact, Zi mentions the Amberites and their arrival on Axildusk to Axewing, who asks in return a message be passed to Elric at the next opportunity, “Yrkoon is dead.”


Zi, freed from Asher’s previous secrecy given his employment as a spy, explains much of the situation on Axildusk to Axewing.


Together, they realize that the Cadavviva that threaten the rest of existence outside this world somehow got their start in Axildusk, based on what Elric has told Zi. Axewing is caught up in the potential to halt the Cadavivva before they can become a threat, but Zi reminds him that Elric believes, if he does not gain the throne, the cause will be lost before they begin, so removing Peloi, who opposed the Melnibonean, would be expedient.


Axewing feels that humans must battle the Draegerans to gain their respect and a proper place in the world, downtrodden as they are now. But Zi points out that the Draegerans must oppose the Jenoine, so any weakening of the Empire might hurt that cause. Instead of rising up, he said, humans must stand up to be counted.

Transcribed by R.Perry