Chapter 10 The Strategist
I opened an Oko, Thief of Crowns in the prerelease and went full Simic and threw a solid Orzhov knight plan off. Then I went 0-3 by a much more aggressive deck. It turns out everyone decides to run Gingerbrute, which is an MVP common in my opinion.
Then I play a seal in Arena with WB knight and crush it with a 6-1 score. Then I draft 2 Gadwick, the Wizened. It was a fun time.
And No, this story will not go to Eldraine. The Royal Scions might make an appearance though, I am still considering it.
…
Reviews
: Nice.
Yep.
Ragnarshadow: … (Lots of suggestions)
Thanks a lot for your suggestions. I already have a plan though.
TianYi: So, he (Jon) can't have kids?
Yes. It will be relevant afterward.
Also, TianYi: It'd be funny if he (Jon) claws Catelyn right there XD.
It might, but it will make a story too bland for my taste.
…
Previously
"Well done young Snow. You are ready to meet Ugin. Come. He awaits you inside the dragon storm."
…
The Dragon Storm. The most marvelous place in Tarkir. It is a power given life. Literally. Twenty-five thousand years or so it has existed. Created by an Elder dragon planeswalker Ugin since the dawn of history, its very existence defines the plane of Tarkir itself. The vortex sucks up the plane's mana, condenses it into elementals, shapes it into dragon form, and splats them out.
The Dragon Storm is the place where all dragons of Tarkir are born. The first five are the dragonlords. Atarka, Silumgar, Ojutai, Kolaghan, and Dromoka. Strongest of their kind, each dominates each corner of Tarkir's landscape. Their power is evenly matched. Only by trickery and outnumbered, one would be overpowered by the other. Still, when one about to falls and one about to rises, the others will intervene.
Five dragonlords, five clans, eternal wars. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
Not that the dragonlords like their status quo. They were created to rule, to dominate. The day they satisfied with their position is the day Tarkir ends. Schemes after schemes, they played their own game with different pawns and different alliances. Normally, when one goes too far for the other four to stop, Ugin will intervene. But Ugin has not been seen for thousands of years. Not since his deadly battle with his twin brother in the ages long past.
Ugin is not here anymore. The other four are distracted elsewhere. There are only her and her prize. Jon, the little human, did what he was told. He had awaked the elder dragon's power. The power that soon will be hers. Just a little more. Inside the vortex, the dragon power will overpower the man. Its very essence will tear him apart slowly piece by piece and will seek out a new host. Of course, she will be there and devour it all. She will be unstopped able. No one will ever hope to match her, not her siblings, not even Ugin.
Then, and only then will Tarkir become hers. Everywhere will be her hunting grounds. All shall either serve her or be her prey. She will be the World Render, starts with her siblings. Especially with Ojutai, that erudite prick will be the first to suffer her wrath.
The moment of her ascension is at hand. The human is still believed that she would take him to Ugin. He is not wrong, of course. Ugin is already dead and soon this Jon Snow will join him in the afterlife. Not that it matters to her. Once she is invincible, all those who question her will die a horrible death. All those that fail her standard will die a horrible death. All those that she deems too unworthy will die a horrible death. Only those that she deems worthy enough to be her food will die a quick death.
And then, if Ur-Dragon is kind, she might discover a secret of Tarkir. A secret of Ugin and the others of his kind. A secret of little snow and his she-wolf protector. If she knows how to travel to other planes like in the days of old, then her feast is just begun. Tarkir will be her appetizer, and the rest of the multiverse will be her main course.
If only she understands what the Eldrazi are.
…
Wrong. So wrong. There is an interruption in his plan. There is an interference with his grand design. Something wants to steal his birthright. A lesser dragon, an Ugin spawn, dares to claims his power as its own. This cannot stand. This will not stand.
His contingency plan works. The seed that he sows on a blackwater plane has finally provided a ripened fruit. One in a million chance for the diluted blood to gain a spark. Even less so for that spark to ignite. It had been countless lifetimes over and even more death and tragedy to make it finally happened. The key to his returning is here, but now it is about to be snatched away.
The vessel that is Jon Snow is too weak to resist the pull. It doesn't have enough time to grow. His influence over the host is not strong enough to completely control its decision. The bond is not yet deep enough for him to erase the human conscious from the body. It makes him an observer, not a player.
The would-be usurper is too strong to be dominated. She will take his power and uses it for her own purpose. He will not allow it. He is a puppeteer, never a puppet. A solution must be found. Risk must be taken. Vaevictis Asmadi must be awakened. Prematurely if need be.
He is the woe of the vanquished. It is his birthright, granted by the Ur-Dragon, to rule. When he awakes, the others hide. When he attacks, the others flee. When he lies …
When he lies … It becomes a truth until he reveals otherwise. The Serpent's Tongue few called him. The best lie he ever told was that he was a stupid rampaging brute. All those who ever believed that was already dead.
Jon Snow will not be any different. He will believe. He will obey. And when he is no longer useful, he will be discarded like the rest. It will not happen in a millennium or so, but it eventually will. No one denies Vaevictis Asmadi his due.
'BOY!' Jon hears a scream in draconic. 'Listen and OBEY!' It was demanding and full of rage. It was not from Atarka, that's for sure.
"Who's there?" asked Jon. He looks around and sees nothing but wind and air. There is no one else here. "Do you hear that?"
"Stop this non-sense Snow. You will speak only when spoken to!" Annoyingly growled Atarka. "The vortex draws nears. You will meet with Ugin soon."
'Don't answer the usurper. Only you can hear me, Human. You have been tricked. Ugin sleeps in the valley under you as he was for thousands of years. The usurper will betray you and take what is rightfully yours.' The same voice warns him. 'The vortex will rend you apart. When you die, the power will go to the nearest viable host. We cannot allow it to happen.'
Jon listens in silence. He is not easily persuaded, especially the wolf spirit grants him an ability to detect lies by monitoring physical changes in his opponent. This is different. The voice is just that. A voice. There is no baseline. There is nothing to look for lies. Still, he has to admit he, like all the members of Atarka clan, had taken the dragon's word like gospel. It is a flaw that he still tries to get rid of.
What if Atarka lies? What if it is the dragon plan all along? Is he a pawn in a game that he doesn't even know it is being played?
More importantly, who is the voice that is warning him? And can he trust this voice? For the moment, Jon doesn't know.
'Listen well and listen close, boy! I will not repeat myself. You are a conscious created by this mortal body. I am the power that hidden within it. We are one and the same. I am Vaevictis Asmadi and so are you. Only when we become one will we regain our birthright. When we do, everything will tremble before us.'
'As of now, your body is too weak. We need more time, which we currently don't have. Challenging the usurper will kill us. Doing nothing will kill us. We are too close to the vortex to escape the plane. We need to beat the usurper at its own game.' The voice continues.
'This is what you must do. When you are at the edge of the vortex you must feint a pain. You will unleash your power as wildly as possible. You must make sure it attracts the others that can challenge the usurper. They will grant us the time we need to wake Ugin from his slumber. Use the connection between Ugin and the vortex to find him. I will handle it from there.'
Jon listens closely as Atarka flies near the vortex. Yes, he is skeptic, but his instinct tells him to trust the voice. And the instinct has yet to betray him so far. The question "Can I trust this stranger tales?" rings in his mind. He always thought that 'having dragon blood' is a metaphor that Atarka uses to describe his extraordinary talent. Only now does Jon realized how dumb he was. Everything starts to make sense.
The Targaryens claims that they have dragon blood in their veins. If he has dragon blood, it means that either he is a bastard conceived by Eddard Stark and a woman with a Targaryen blood but who? or Lord Stark is not his father.
Why he is raised a bastard? Why does he know nothing about his mother? The answers start to form in his mind. He might feel rage for all the lie he had been told all his life had he has time to spare.
Fuck it! He cast aside his hesitation and doubt. I will worry about it later.
They said that when a Targaryen is born, the god toss a coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land. Today, Jon Snow, if that is his real name, toss a coin again. Either the plan works, and he lives, or the plan fails, and he dies. Or the Targaryen curse is stronger than he thought, and he is turning mad and hearing voices. Or some unknown entity is manipulating him for shits and giggles. There are so many possibilities, but only one truth that he has no idea of knowing.
So, it is not a coin at all. It is more like a twenty-sided die. May his roll be forever neutral.
…
As Atarka flies closer and closer to the dragon storm, Jon can feel the pull of the vortex. His dragon blood boils in anticipation. It wants to fly. It wants to burn. It wants to break free of his shell. All the more that confirms the thing that Vaevictis Asmadi told him. Whether he is also part of Vaevictis Asmadi or not, that is remained to be seen.
He already surrounds himself with lies, both of his own and others. There is nothing certain in his life anymore. Truth or lie, there is not much difference when you have no control.
When the pull becomes strong enough, he did as he was told. He fakes a scream in pain and twirl on the dragon's back. To make it even more believable, he hurt himself by channel his mana backward. Everything he learns not to do when he uses magic, he does the opposite.
Seeing that the little human is behaving weird, Atarka panics. Her intricate plan relies on the human to remain intact before reaching the eye of the storm. If he is broken at the edge, the power might leak out too much and she will not have enough to dominate the other four. Worse, if the others caught the remnant of her prize, it will make things more difficult. Still, from her estimation, the little man will never survive long enough to reach the epicenter of the storm.
Atarka doubles her speed. It will take only a minute before she reaches the edge. If she acts fast enough, she might still drain the majority of the human's power while they remain at the edge. It is risky, but it is the risk worth taking.
*ROAR* A thundering boom of draconic challenge echo the sky of Tarkir.
The entire plane stands still. The stupid human had done it! Jon Snow just challenged all the dragonlords while he was in pain. It must be unbearable that it destroys his mind. The massage was clear. 'You call yourself a dragonlord, but in fact, you are nothing but a toothless worm. I am Jon Snow. In the name of Atarka, I will kill you all.'
Curses. This will complicate things. Thought the dragon. The little human had turned mad. It would not be a problem if he didn't call the other four here by his challenge. She cannot even kill the man in anger for she needs him to be alive for the transmission of power.
If only Atarka knows she is outplayed. She would only be even more enraged.
…
The other will reach her soon. Atarka can feel it. Four other dragon lords are flying straight at her. She needs to do it now, or it will be too late. She does a barrel roll to shake the little human off her back. Falling, the little human wails in terror but his emotion matters little to Atarka. All she needs from him is his power.
The little man is swept up and kept aloof by the vortex's wind. He is thrown and blown away in the razor wind. Atarka moves quickly and catches him forcefully with her claws. She holds him tight and let his own power do the work. The pull is stronger when they are in the vortex proper. She could feel the power she desired leaking out to her. The process is slow, yes, but it is necessary. If too much essence burst out and she cannot swallow it all, then it would be a waste. And she would rather be damned before she would let the essence that is hers to seeps out to her siblings, however small that sliver might be.
*ROAR*
A red dragon, the dragonlord Kolaghan, cut through the storm at a blitzing speed. Thunder seems to dance around her. Her four feathery wings reflect the lightning as her webbed whiskers glow with power. There is no conversation. There is no word to be exchanged. They already exchange blows since they are a kilometer away. Flame versus lightning. Pure power against pure power. They dance around each other like they did many times before. It is a stalemate.
Until Atarka taps into her new source of power, Jon. The dance of the dragons is about to turn into a slaughter.
The Storm's Fury is wiped away when the emerald flame grows dark. The torrent of fire doubles its power in an instant and continue to intensify without any indication of slowing down. The blast hit Kolaghan right in her chest and engulfs her. The Red-Black dragon continues to burn, and it would be the death of her if she doesn't retreat at once.
Lucky for her, help comes in the form of a breath of winter. A white dragon with red remiges, the dragonlord Ojutai ascends from below. He opens his mouth and lets out a stream of frost to redirect the flame away. Redirect not extinguished. Even against the Soul of Winter, Atarka's fire is now too hot to cool down.
Not only the antlered dragon attack is enhanced, but her defense is also now impenetrable. While she can match attack to attack against two of her siblings head-on, she could ignore the threat of the other two who just arrive later. Black dragon, the dragonlord Silumgar, unleashes his acidic breath that can melt a mountain. His Drifting Death is so poisonous that when it hit the target, the land around it is also dead for hundreds of years. If it was Atarka before this, she would need to dodge it for she doesn't dare to face the consequence. But now, Atarka does nothing. The attack falls short against her hide, stopping a mere meter before her. The miasma around her body prevents her from being harm be it a mighty lightning strike, a freezing cone of cold, a noxious cloud of poison, or even a searing beam of light. Even when a bronze scaled dragon, the dragonlord Dromoka, unleashes her attack alongside her brother, the miasma stands strong. Instead, it is Atarka's claw that rends Dromoka's back, cleaving a huge chunk of unbreakable scale away from the body. The Eternal seems not to be eternal anymore.
As the battle rages on, Atarka continues to dominate her siblings. If the fight goes at the same pace, she would be the victor over the four of her sibling's corpses by the end of the day. But one moment of carelessness, when her attention lies elsewhere, is all it takes for her plan to fall apart. Because it is that moment when Jon makes a move. She only thought of him as her pawn. She thought him a weak pathetic human is defenseless against her will. He was an ant to her eyes, but it only takes an ant in the right place at the right time to ruin anyone's day.
…
The collection of hedrons in the valley below crack with newfound power as the entity within is rejuvenated. The spirit dragon was badly wound and had been asleep for thousands of years. But one burst of power redirected from the dragon storm heals him to nearly his prime. He might not have a power of the planeswalker of old anymore, but he is still an elder dragon. His 'Children' will obey him. He is yet to know what the five of his oldest do this time. They have never been getting along, but that is fine. Their conflict is necessary to keep Tarkir strong. However, the balance must be maintained or there will be no Tarkir left.
Your family will be the death of you if you are a dragon. A statement that holds true wherever you are in the multiverse.
And this time, he wonders who the cause of this familial calamity is. His first bet is on Atarka. She is the most compatible with Vaevictis Asmadi's power he sensed. How she gets the hand on it is a question he doesn't have time to answer right now.
Right now, he has to stop his 'Children' from destroying their home and all the life in it. Unlike him, they cannot leave. And if there is any planeswalker behind this mess, he will make sure they learn their lesson.
You don't come to one's homeplane to make a mess and get away with it.
…
Atarka roars in triumphant as she overpowers the other four. Her siblings are badly beaten. Her power continues to grow. She can feel the essence of the elder dragon surges through her body. The power continues to drain from the little human as his body is falling apart. He will hold long enough for her to become invincible. She is pleased with the situation so much that she might exempt him from being her food afterward. A dried husk doesn't taste that good anyway.
And then the flow of the elder dragon essence stops. The power is being redirected elsewhere. It doesn't dissipate into nothingness. It doesn't go to her accursed siblings. It goes to ….
No. Impossible!
*ROAR*
The dragon storm starts to slow down. The vortex power wanes. Tarkir quakes as its owner arise again. The Shifting waste turns upon itself and swallows everything on top of it. Cori mountain has a sudden flash flood and drowns everything below it. Sagu jungle comes to life and attacks its denizens. The great steppes are having a thousands year worth of thunderstorm. Qal Sisma mountain burns with a volcanic flame.
Ugin has returned. And by returning the death toll of Tarkir denizen is in hundreds of thousands. It is a calamity for the clans, except for Atarka. They get uses to the mountain range being lit on fire when Jon angered Sakta during their training for years now.
Before Atarka or any of her siblings could react, they are flushed with a colorless flame. The flame is formless and there is no defense that can protect them against it. From below, the Spirit Dragon flies anew as the sky split apart for its master. Time seemingly stops at the five dragonlords is confronted by their father.
"What is the meaning of this?" The elder dragon doesn't look angry. He just disappoints. Even if this kind of behavior is to be expected when he creates the vortex.
"It's Atarka, father. She started it!" yelled Ojutai. "She did something to gain more power, and now she seeks to eliminate us and rule Tarkir alone."
"Shut it, Brother. I'm now powerful than any of you. If you have anyone to blame, blame yourself for being weak. Only the strong can rule Tarkir!" Snapped Atarka. Her eyes promise death. Even in the presence of Ugin, she shows neither respect nor relevance like she used to. She is too powerful to be doing it anymore.
"Your sister is right, Ojutai. The rule I set thousands of years before is clear. If you can take it, you can have it. You are Tarkir protector in my stead, how can any of you be weak? Only by challenging each other, you can get stronger." Said Ugin, much of the dismay of others. "But I don't remember that I allow then interference of other of my kind in this conflict. Atarka. Who or what is in the clutch of your claws?"
"You no longer have the right to demand anything from me anymore, old wyrm! I possess the power of an elder dragon." Atarka snapped back and unleashes her emerald flame. "Maybe I will take yours as well!"
Ugin could only sigh at her reply. Laws of the jungle it is then. He unleashes all the might he could muster. This confrontation needs to be quick, or the damage done to his plane will be even worse. Colorless flames collide with the emerald one. Their power is evenly matched, but Ugin has a trick up his non-existent sleeve. Tarkir is his. The dragon storm is his. He creates the dragonlord and he can destroy them just as easy.
"Among the powerhouse of the multiverse that I face, you are nothing, daughter. Don't let it over your head just because you gain a sliver of power beyond your comprehension." Said Ugin as he turns the dragon storm against his adversary.
The vortex itself siphon Atarka's newfound power out at a drastic pace. It only takes a blink of an eye for his colorless flame to overpower Atarka's emerald. Within a second, Atarka is defeated. "Now! Release your captive. Go back to your corner and think about what you have done!" He yells as he snatches almost unconscious Jon from Atarka clutches and sent her scramming back to her own territory. He then looks at the other four "You four as well. Don't even think that I don't consider that you will do the same if you have a chance. Begone!"
Only when the other four left does Ugin resumes the vortex and descends to his sanctuary. Only then does he speak to his captive. His calmed voice turns into that full of fury and rage. "Now, little human. Where is your master?"
…
Custom Card of the Chapter
Card Name: Family Gathering
Mana Cost: WUBRG
Types: Legendary Sorcery
Card Text:
Reveal the top ten cards of your library. For each color pair, choose a legendary card or a card with a convert mana cost of 4 or higher that's exactly those colors from among them. Put the chosen cards to the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library at any order.
Flavor Text: "Why does no one understand that I am trying to be the best father in the multiverse? I even prevent them from killing each other out of spite" – Said Ugin.
"Even a mediocre father would not have children who want to kill each other out of spite!" – Said Jon.
Rarity: Mythic Rare
…
Yes, I make up the family dynamic of the dragon of Tarkir. It fit the theme of family for this story the best. And yes, he put the dragon lords on a timeout.
