345 Meet the Emperor

Zor'khan-dras tapped his lips as he sat on his chair. "Greetings, Remian. I have to confess, when I said I wanted to meet you THIS was not how I envisioned it happening."

Across from him, Remian stood still in his Silhouette, with a collar around its neck led by a chain held in the hands of a very proud-looking Nai'khan-dras. "Grandpa! See what I caught!"

"About that… it wasn't what I planned either, but…" With a grimace, Remian let his Silhouette fade away.

Nai'khan-dras stared as the 'ghost wolf' disappeared into nothing. "D-doggie? Doggie…?!"

Tears welled up in her eyes, and then began to flow down uncontrollably. "Doggie…!!!"

She began to sob, and her sobbing rapidly increased in intensity. Abruptly Death re-appeared, looming over Remian, practically on top of him.

Under the shadow of Death, Remian hurriedly recalled his Silhouette and had it nose Nai'khan-dras playfully, tail wagging as if its disappearance was just some sort of game.

Death vanished with a flicker.

"DOGGIE!" Nai'khan's scream made several glass panes crack. She pounced on Remian's silhouette and started pummeling it with enough strength to produce shockwaves. Then she kicked at it. "You made me so worried! I thought you were gone! Don't do that to me! Don't ever do that to me!!"

To that, Remian's Silhouette could only look to Zor'khan-dras for rescue with an embarrassed and helpless look.

Zor'khan-dras cleared his throat. "As you can see, my grand-daughter doesn't quite have full control of her powers yet. She is still learning how to be gentle around fragile humans."

"I hardly think that is the problem we need to be addressing right now…" Remian groaned. He thought he was done with Death! Why had Death suddenly reappeared? Did it have something to do with making the little princess of the Empire cry in front of her grandfather Emperor?

But Zor'khan didn't seem intent on sharing any previous homicidal tendencies. "Quite right. I needed to talk to you about building spaceships."

Remian could only let it go and move on to the next topic. "Spaceships? Do dragons even use spaceships? I thought you Dras Clan dragons could all just fly around in space."

"At full maturity, yes, but until then, our younger ones need some sort of shelter."

"So your children and grandchildren and such all need space-faring vessels to carry them to safety… wouldn't your Dras Clan be able to handle it?"

"Oh yes. The vessels meant to bring my family away are already en route."

"Then what do you need me for?"

"About that… my mother basically told us to leave everything and run." Zor'khan paused. "As it turns out, I've grown rather attached to my toys, and I would rather bring them along."

Remian stared. "Just how many people are we talking about, here?"

"One hundred and fifty thousand." Zor'khan specified.

Remian gaped. "Wait, that can't be right! At last estimate, your Dragon Empire had grown to roughly two billion in population!"

"I harbor no hopes of bringing away so many humans. I only wish to bring those who are fully under my control, those who have sworn undying fealty to me, and have blood-bonds with my Clan. I only want the Draconians."

Remian's face fell. "But… but what about everyone else? All the normal humans in your Empire?"

"They are too unreliable. Too unstable. Too unpredictable. There's no telling when they might turn on me, or on each other, or do something stupid in the middle of space out of selfishness, spite or sheer boredom. I cannot trust them." Zor'khan said. "I will not be bringing them with me. If you want them, you can take them with you."

"Me? I don't even have a reliable way to get off this planet myself! I probably won't even live long enough to see my people reach space!" Remian grunted as Nai'khan scored a particularly hard kick right in the middle of his Silhouette's tummy.

"Yet, you seem to harbor hopes of finding a way to do exactly that!" Zor'khan-dras pointed out. "Mal'thor told me you wanted permission to set up an independent trading post beacon."

Remian paused. "This is true. I'm amazed he noticed, he was snoring so hard."

"Yes, he practically begged me to get you out of his nest. Have mercy on my poor little brother and let him sleep. He's really tired out after fighting off those Spectres."

"Does that mean you're agreeable to it? Setting up such a beacon is a gamble, at best." Remian said warily. "We might attract all sorts of trouble."

"Which is why I am making you an offer." Zor'khan grunted. "We will join forces to save my people and yours. You will handle the work. I will handle security. I expect my people to also benefit from the technology you gain from trading with otherworlders. In return, if any interstellar mischief-maker tries to cause trouble under my nose… they will have to answer to the Dras Clan!"

"Great. In other words, I have to do everything while you sit back and just use your last name as a deterrent…" Remian muttered.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Zor'khan raised an eyebrow.

Nai'khan somehow got the gist of what was going on. She understood easily enough that her grandpa was bullying her Doggie. After a quick moment to consider, she picked her side. Nai'khan-dras seized a handful of Silhouette wolfcat fur and shook it with her little fists and said threateningly, "Do you? Do you?!"

Remian turned back to Zor'khan trying very hard to ignore the little girl pummeling his Silhouette. "I want more."

"Oh? I'm already intending to commit all available resources to the ship-building, including craftsmen and whatever technology my people has. What more could you want?"

"Portal access. And the secret to finding mana on the other side. Plus, we keep whatever mana and battle loot we can get on the other side." Remian hesitated. "Is it possible to simply leave the Portal open and allow more ambient mana to come through?"

"We could." Zor'khan paused. "But the ambient mana in the Undead World is tainted. If we let too much of it through, it could start an outbreak of Undead here. In fact, you have to keep the Wilds away from it. Any Wild going through it is going to be affected by the messed-up ambient mana on the other side."

"How do you know?" Remian had to ask.

"I happen to know a lot about the Wilds." Zor'khan chuckled. "You call them Comrades, don't you? Did you know their origins? Befriending humans and helping them out is in their genes. The Quarin were raising Familiars for their Magi here, using the Wildlands as a sort of Familiar-farm."

Remian took a moment to process. "So the Wilds' Psionic abilities…"

"Oh, that was a result of the original Spectre incursion. The Quarin magi were overwhelmed and decided to boost their products' Psionic abilities to help them fight the Spectres. Afterward, some of them became too powerful and too independent to be good Familiars, so they abandoned these failed products when they left. Their descendents are the Wilds you know today."

"Except the dragons." Remian pointed out.

"Except the dragons." Zor'khan agreed. "My brothers and their broods like it there because the fresh meat has a richer taste of mana. But that's all fading away now."

"Thus the hunt for mana on an Undead world."

"A hunt? It's an all-out war. There is little mana to be mined, most of the time we need to kill Undead for mana… if you can call it killing." Zor'khan mused. "The higher the Tier of Undead, the higher the quality of mana crystal we can draw from it. Believe me, it's tougher than it sounds."

"Oh? Whatever happened to the might of the Great Dragons?"

"My Clan would have no problems flattening whole armies of Undead. But we face the same problem as the Wilds." Zor'khan grimaced. "The ambient mana there is just too corrupted."

"So you can't go through to that side, and you can't let the Undead through to this side." Remian understood at last. "That's why you've been relying on your legion."

"On top of that, any loss on our side is a gain on theirs. I've lost count of how many of my servants died only to rise again as Undead and join the hordes attacking my men." Zor'khan added. "That's why we only let the toughest, strongest troops through. Finally, we only send out warriors who are immune to fire."

"Immune to fire? Why?"

"Because when they come back, we send them through a purification process. Like I said, we don't want an outbreak of Undead. The entire hall is flooded with flames. Ambient mana, soldiers, crystals, everything coming through from that side is purified in fire. If they're not immune to fire, the soldiers who return simply wouldn't survive."

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