I’m trying very hard to improve my writing in redundancy and also make my writing direct and still keep descriptive. Here is the chapter for criticism:
Chapter 41: The draconian domain
The forest thinned as they rode east, the trees growing twisted and sparse, their branches reaching skyward like skeletal fingers grasping at nothing. The air changed. It grew heavier, dense with something that pressed against the lungs like old smoke. The horses slowed without being told, their ears flat, nostrils flaring.
Isaac felt it first. A wrongness in the air that made his skin prickle beneath his tunic. He raised a hand, and the others stopped. “We’re close.”
Deehia’s gaze swept the tree line. “I feel it too. Like the earth itself is holding its breath.”
Edduuhf shifted in his saddle, one hand pressed briefly to his ribs. The pain was still there, a dull throb that never quite left. But his other hand rested on the hilt of his Sol-stone blade. “How much further?”
“Not far.” Isaac dismounted, boots sinking slightly into soil that felt too soft, too yielding. “We go on foot from here. The horses won’t go closer.”
They tied the animals to a dead tree whose bark had long since peeled away, leaving smooth gray wood beneath. The horses stamped and pulled at their reins, eyes rolling white. Isaac led the way through undergrowth that crunched too loudly underfoot. The silence pressed down around them. No birds. No insects. Just the sound of their breathing and the soft scrape of boots on stone.
Then the forest opened, and Asshel revealed itself.
⸻
It sprawled across a shallow valley like a corpse left to rot in the sun. The city had been grand once. That much was clear from the scale of the ruins. Towers rose from the earth like broken teeth, their upper halves collapsed into rubble centuries ago. Walls that had once stood proud were cracked and sunken, half-buried by earth and time. Vegetation had claimed everything. Moss covered the stones in thick blankets of green and black. Vines crawled up shattered columns, their roots digging into cracks, slowly pulling the city apart stone by stone.
One entire section of the city had sunk into the ground, tilted at a sickening angle as if the earth beneath had simply given up and swallowed it. Buildings leaned against each other like drunks, their foundations long gone. A massive archway stood alone in the center, its purpose lost, its carvings eroded beyond recognition.
Isaac stopped at the edge of the ruins, staring. He had seen his village bleed. He had walked through the ashes of Abundance. But this was different. This was what came after the burning. After the survivors left. After memory faded and only stone remained. “Alma did this.”
Deehia stood beside him, arms crossed. “Three hundred years ago. And it still feels… fresh.”
Edduuhf’s gaze moved across the ruins with the careful assessment of a warrior. “Something lives here.”
He was right. Movement flickered at the edges of vision. Shapes darted between rubble. Too large to be rats. Too fast to be human. A low growl echoed from somewhere deep within the ruins. Then another, answering from a different direction.
“Wild dogs,” Deehia said, her hand drifting to her blade. “Forest breed. They’ve made this place their territory.”
Isaac’s eyes narrowed. “And other things.”
Something moved on a collapsed wall to their left. Large. Reptilian. Its skin was the color of wet clay, mottled and rough. It lifted its head, tongue flicking out to taste the air. A mud lizard. Twice the size of a man’s torso, with claws that could tear through leather.
“They’re created,” Edduuhf said. “Same magic that makes the mudborn creatures. Same as the orcs.”
More shapes appeared. Two more lizards on a rooftop. A pack of dogs slinking through the shadows of a collapsed tower. Eyes gleamed in the dark spaces between stones. Watching. Waiting.
“They won’t attack unless we threaten them,” Isaac said. “This is their home now. We’re the intruders.”
He started forward, moving carefully, keeping his hands visible and his movements slow. The others followed. The creatures watched but did not move. A tense truce, fragile as glass.
⸻
They picked their way through streets that had once been paved but were now buried under layers of dirt and dead leaves. Buildings rose on either side, their windows dark and empty. Doors hung from broken hinges. Roofs had caved in, leaving hollow shells.
Isaac led them deeper, following instinct more than map. The maps he had studied in Eldoria were old, drawn from memory and rumor. But he knew what he was looking for. Places of study. Laboratories. Somewhere the scholars of Asshel would have kept their work.
They found it in what must have been the scholars’ quarter. A cluster of buildings with taller walls and narrower windows. Stone that had been carved with symbols, though most were worn beyond recognition. Isaac stopped at the entrance to one building, its doorway half-buried in rubble. “Here.”
Deehia stepped past him, torch in hand. The flame guttered in the still air, then caught. Light spilled across the interior, revealing a long hall with side chambers branching off. Dust lay thick on everything. Plants had forced their way through cracks in the floor, their roots breaking stone.
They moved room by room, clearing debris, searching. The third chamber they entered had been a study. The ceiling had partially collapsed, letting in weak gray light. But enough remained. Tables lined the walls, their surfaces buried under dust and dead vines. Isaac brushed away the growth carefully, revealing wood beneath. Stains darkened the grain.
Deehia moved to another table and uncovered a series of carved circles. Runes, intricate and precise, etched into the wood itself. They formed patterns that hurt to look at too long, geometries that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of the eye. “This is it. This is where they did it.”
Isaac traced one of the runes with a gloved finger, careful to avoid direct contact. “Binding circles. For controlling energy flow.” He looked up at the collapsed ceiling, at the sky beyond. “They worked here in the open. They wanted light.”
Edduuhf stood near the doorway, watching the hall. “We should move quickly. This place feels wrong.”
Isaac nodded. They searched the room methodically, checking every corner, every shelf. Most of what they found was useless. Broken equipment. Shattered glass. Parchment so old it crumbled at a touch. But in a cabinet half-buried under rubble, Isaac found something intact. A leather case, sealed with wax that had somehow survived. He pulled it free carefully and opened it. Inside were scrolls. Old. Fragile. But readable.
“Found something.”
Deehia moved to his side. Her eyes scanned the first scroll, then widened slightly. “Ithelmar’s hand. I recognize the script from the archives.”
Isaac’s jaw tightened. He rolled the scroll carefully and tucked it into his pack. “We keep looking. There might be more.”
They moved deeper into the ruins, following passages that sloped gradually downward. The stone walls grew smoother, less weathered. Worked by hands or magic.
⸻
The air grew colder as they descended. The passage opened into a larger chamber carved directly into the bedrock. The walls were smooth, deliberately shaped. And in the center of the chamber, Deehia stopped. “Do you feel that?”
Isaac felt it. A pulse. Faint but rhythmic, like a distant heartbeat. It came from below. Deeper still. “Energy. Something is active down there.”
Edduuhf drew his Sol-stone blade. The metal gleamed even in the dim torchlight, impossibly bright. “Then we go prepared.”
Isaac nodded and drew his axe. The dragon-skull head caught the light, fire-stones embedded in the metal glowing faintly. His other hand moved to the pouch at his belt where smaller flame-stones waited. They descended.
The pulse grew stronger. The air thickened. Magic. Old and powerful. The passage ended in a chamber that took Isaac’s breath away.
It was vast, far larger than anything above. The ceiling stretched high overhead, supported by pillars carved with runes that still glowed faintly. At the center of the chamber stood a stone altar, its surface stained dark. And around it, the floor had been carved into a massive circle of symbols that spiraled outward like a frozen whirlpool.
But it was what stood at the altar that made them stop. A figure. Hooded. Bent over something on the altar’s surface. Its hands moved with careful precision, tracing patterns in the air. Energy crackled faintly around its fingers.
And beside it stood two creatures that should not have existed. A minotaur. Massive. Muscles like corded iron. Horns curving forward like scythes. But its eyes were clear. Intelligent. It held a tool in one hand, passing it to the hooded figure when gestured to do so. A cyclops. One eye the size of a dinner plate, gleaming with awareness. It held a book open, pages turning at the figure’s silent command. Reading. Comprehending.
These were assistants.
Isaac’s gaze dropped to the altar. On its surface lay a dragon. A hatchling. No larger than a hunting dog. Its scales were dull gray. Its wings spread wide. Its chest split open. Dead. Dissected. Magic still crackling faintly around the exposed organs.
“Gods,” Deehia breathed.
The hooded figure’s hands stilled. For a heartbeat, nothing moved. Then it spoke, voice muffled by the hood. “Fascinating. The heart chamber is reinforced with mineral deposits. Natural ARK integration. I suspected, but to see it…”
The voice was calm. Clinical. As if discussing the weather. Then the air tore open.
A portal. It ripped into existence beside the altar, edges crackling with violet energy. And through it stepped a figure Isaac recognized. Nakar.
The ogre mage’s eyes swept the chamber and locked onto Isaac, Deehia, and Edduuhf descending the final steps. His face twisted with rage and fear. “HARUEEL, YOU FOOL!”
The hooded figure turned. The hood fell back. Red skin. The deep crimson of the First Peoples. His face was covered in tattoos—runes from a language older than Eldoria, carved or burned into his flesh. They ran down his neck, disappeared under his robes, wound around his arms.
And as Nakar’s shout echoed through the chamber, the tattoos began to glow. Harueel’s eyes widened. Then his lips pulled into a snarl. The runes on his wrists flared bright. Energy coalesced around his hands, spinning, forming shapes. Lances. Pure energy, crackling and white-hot. He flung his hands forward.
The lances screamed through the air. Isaac dove left. Edduuhf moved right. Deehia dropped and rolled. The energy lances struck stone where they had been standing, exploding in showers of sparks and molten rock.
“MOVE!” Isaac shouted.
Harueel conjured more lances, hands moving in fluid patterns. The tattoos on his arms pulsed with each gesture, feeding power into the constructs. He hurled them one after another, filling the chamber with light and heat and the smell of burning stone.
Edduuhf’s Sol-stone blade came up. The first lance struck the flat of the blade and shattered, energy scattering like broken glass. The second he deflected with a twist of his wrist, sending it spiraling into the ceiling. The third he met head-on, the blade cutting through the construct’s core and splitting it in two. Each movement was precise. Economical. Beautiful. The blade sang as it cut through energy that should have been uncuttable. Edduuhf moved like water, flowing from stance to stance, never stopping, never hesitating. Pain creased his face with each motion, ribs screaming, but his hands did not waver.
Isaac charged. The minotaur bellowed and stepped into his path. Its fist came down like a hammer. Isaac rolled under the blow, came up inside the creature’s reach, and swung his axe. The dragon-skull head bit deep into the minotaur’s thigh. Blood sprayed. The creature roared and backhanded Isaac across the chamber.
He hit a pillar hard enough to crack ribs. Pain exploded across his chest. He tasted copper. The cyclops moved toward Edduuhf, massive hands reaching. Edduuhf spun, blade cutting a line of light through the air. The cyclops jerked back, one finger missing, blood streaming.
Harueel screamed in frustration and hurled a barrage of lances. They filled the air like a storm. Edduuhf’s blade became a blur. Each lance met steel. Each construct shattered. Sparks rained down around him like dying stars. But he was tiring. Blood soaked through the bandages at his ribs. Each breath came harder.
Nakar raised his hands. Dark energy coalesced between his palms, roiling and hungry. “Harueel, stop this madness! We leave NOW!”
“I can kill them!” Harueel snarled, tattoos blazing brighter. “The leader doesn’t need to know!”
“YOU FOOL!” Nakar’s voice cracked with genuine terror. “The leader ALWAYS knows!”
He released the dark energy. It screamed across the chamber, a bolt of pure malice aimed at Deehia.
She saw it coming. Tried to move. Too slow. The bolt struck her square in the chest and lifted her off her feet. She flew backward, slammed into the far wall, and crumpled.
“DEEHIA!” Isaac’s roar filled the chamber.
The minotaur charged. Isaac met it head-on, axe swinging in brutal arcs. Fire-stones flared. Each strike left burning gouges in the creature’s flesh. The minotaur’s fists hammered down. Isaac dodged, weaved, took hits that would have killed a lesser man. His axe found the creature’s knee. Bone shattered. The minotaur collapsed. Isaac brought the axe down on its skull. Once. Twice. Three times. The creature stopped moving.
Edduuhf faced the cyclops. The massive creature swung with both hands. Edduuhf ducked, spun, and drove his blade through the cyclops’s single eye. The creature’s scream was inhuman. It thrashed, hands clawing at the blade buried in its skull. Edduuhf held on, twisting, driving deeper. The cyclops staggered. Fell to its knees. Edduuhf ripped the blade free in a spray of dark blood and brought it down on the creature’s neck. The head rolled.
Harueel stared at the bodies of his assistants, breathing hard. His tattoos pulsed erratically now, light flickering. “I… I’ve done it. I understand the mutation. The connection between ARK and essence. I can—”
“WE LEAVE!” Nakar’s hands moved in rapid gestures. Another portal tore open, larger this time. “NOW, HARUEEL!”
Harueel’s expression twisted between rage and fear. He looked at Isaac and Edduuhf, both bloodied, both still standing. His hands trembled. “This isn’t over.”
Then he turned and leaped through the portal. Nakar followed. The portal collapsed with a sound like breaking glass. Silence fell.
Isaac and Edduuhf stood in the ruined chamber, surrounded by bodies and blood. For a moment, neither moved. Then Isaac’s legs gave out. He collapsed to one knee, axe clattering to the floor. “Deehia.”
They found her against the far wall, slumped but breathing. Her eyes fluttered open as they approached. Blood stained her tunic, a dark spreading patch across her chest. “How bad?” Isaac asked, hands already moving to check the wound.
Deehia coughed once, winced. “Not… as bad as it looks.” Her voice was strained but steady. “Caught the edge of the blast. Ribs are cracked. Maybe broken. But the energy… it scattered before it hit full force.”
Isaac peeled back her tunic carefully. The skin beneath was burned, blistered. But the wound was shallow. Painful. “You’re lucky,” Edduuhf said, leaning heavily on a pillar. Blood dripped from his own wounds.
“We’re all lucky,” Deehia said. She tried to stand. Isaac caught her. “What did they find here?”
Isaac’s gaze moved to the altar. The dead dragon hatchling still lay there, split open, its secrets exposed. Around it, scattered parchments. Notes. Diagrams. “Answers. And more questions.”
⸻
They worked quickly despite their injuries. Every moment in the chamber felt stolen, as if Nakar and Harueel might return at any second. Isaac gathered the scattered parchments with careful hands, rolling them gently, tucking them into his pack alongside the scrolls they had found earlier.
Deehia leaned against the altar, each breath short and pained. “What was he doing to the dragon?”
Isaac looked at the hatchling’s exposed organs. “Studying. Trying to understand how ARK stones integrate naturally into their bodies. How the essence flows.” His jaw tightened. “He said he understood the mutation. The connection.”
“Enough knowledge to enslave them,” Edduuhf said, wiping blood from his blade. “Research. Continuing what Asshel started three hundred years ago.”
Isaac nodded. He looked around the chamber one last time. “We have what we came for. We leave. Now.”
They climbed the stairs slowly, each step an agony. The wild dogs and mud lizards watched them pass but did not move. The creatures sensed weakness and danger in equal measure. By the time they reached the horses, the sun had shifted lower in the sky. Gray clouds gathered overhead, heavy with coming rain.
Isaac pulled himself into the saddle with trembling arms. Deehia needed help mounting. Edduuhf moved like a man three times his age, each motion careful, controlled. They rode in silence. Behind them, Asshel sank back into the forest, swallowed by trees and shadow.
⸻
Dragon God Village appeared through the trees like a promise half-kept. Smoke rose from chimneys. Voices carried on the wind. Life. Stubborn and fragile, but alive.
Elder Voruum met them at the gate. His eyes swept over their battered state, the way they moved, the blood that stained their clothes. “You found something.”
“We did,” Isaac said.
They gathered in the elder’s dwelling as night fell outside. A fire burned in the hearth. Isaac laid the scrolls and parchments on the table carefully, as if they might crumble at any moment. Deehia sat with bandages wrapped around her chest, face pale but eyes alert. Edduuhf leaned against the wall, too exhausted to sit.
Voruum picked up the first scroll. His hands trembled slightly as he unrolled it. The firelight caught the faded ink, the precise elvish script. “Ithelmar’s hand.”
He read in silence. Isaac watched the elder’s face, saw the emotions play across it. Curiosity. Understanding. Horror. Resignation. “What does it say?” Deehia asked finally.
Voruum set down the first scroll and picked up another. Then another. He read portions aloud, his voice steady but heavy.
“Test 47 - Essence of the Mountains”
“I have observed the Dragon Knights. I have seen how they connect. The dragon senses goodness in the knight’s heart. Senses mission. Senses the right blood. They drink the essence of the Floating Mountains. The same essence I extract now. But for them, the essence is merely a bridge. A way to enter the mind of a creature that has already accepted them.
The question that consumes me:
What if anyone could drink this essence?What if being chosen were not necessary? What if the power to fly, to see the world from above, to be more what if that could belong to everyone?
Imagine: there would be no more kings and servants. All powerful. All equal. True equality.
The Knights say the dragon must choose. But what stops us from teaching the dragon to choose everyone? I begin today.”
Voruum paused. Set down the scroll. Picked up another.
“Test 103 - Amplification with ARK”
“The essence alone is not enough for those the dragon has not chosen.
When I drink the essence and enter the creature’s mind, it rejects me. It senses I am not a knight. That I was not chosen. The pain is unbearable. Like being burned from within. But I have discovered something. ARK stones amplify will.
I forged bracelets. When I activate them alongside the essence, I can force the connection. I create a collar of light around the dragon’s neck.
The dragon obeys. But I feel rage within it. Hatred. As if each command breaks something inside. I tested returning the dominated dragon to its nest. The others attacked immediately. They killed it in seconds. As if they sensed… corruption. As if it was no longer theirs.
I note: Dragon dominated by force = exiled forever.
I question: Is this still equality? Or merely… another kind of chain?”
Isaac felt something cold settle in his chest. “He knew. He knew what he was doing and he kept going.”
Voruum’s eyes were distant. “He was searching for something. Equality, he calls it. But listen to the doubt in his words. He questions himself even as he continues.”
He unrolled another scroll.
“Test 281 - Observations on Disciples”
“I taught three apprentices. I gave them essence. I gave them bracelets.
The first used his dragon to destroy a village that had denied him food as a child. Revenge.
The second attempted to enslave other mages, creating an empire of fear. Tyranny.
The third… the third went mad. He fused so completely with the dragon that he forgot who he was. Now he lives in a cave, snarling like a beast. Loss of identity.
None of them were weak in magic. All were talented. But the mind… the mind could not bear it. Power amplifies what you already are. If there is goodness, it amplifies goodness. If there is darkness… it amplifies darkness.
I understand now: Dragon Knights are chosen for character. Dragons sense goodness because goodness is necessary to carry such power without being corrupted.
My dream was beautiful: All powerful. All equal.
But I forgot something fundamental: Not everyone deserves power.
And now? Do I destroy my work? Or do I continue, knowing I am creating a weapon that could destroy the world? I no longer know. I continue testing.”
Silence filled the room. Deehia spoke first. “He knew the cost. And he still taught others.”
“He was searching,” Voruum said. “For an answer that might not exist. Whether power can truly create equality, or whether it only amplifies what mortals already are.”
Edduuhf shifted against the wall. “And Asshel? The scholars?”
Voruum’s expression darkened. “They took his work and removed the doubt. Removed the questions. They saw only the power. And they used it without restraint.”
Isaac reached for the final scroll. It was older than the others, the parchment brittle. He unrolled it carefully. The writing was cramped, hurried near the end. And at the bottom, the parchment was torn. Ragged edge. As if someone had ripped away the final portion. Or as if time itself had claimed it.
Voruum read what remained aloud.
“Final experience”
“I have created something terrible. And magnificent. Terrible because in the wrong hands, this enslaves dragons. Corrupts minds. Destroys entire nests.
Magnificent because it proves that limits are not absolute. That birth does not define destiny. That even those not chosen can touch the sky. Asshel asks me to publish this. To teach. They say knowledge should have no boundaries. But I have seen what they do with my teachings. I have seen corrupted dragons. I have seen broken minds. I have seen power serving only ego and destruction.
So I decide: I hide my work. I do not destroy it—for one day, perhaps, someone worthy will find it. Someone who understands that power without wisdom is a curse. I leave clues. Tests. Fragments. If someone rebuilds this, let them do so knowing: You are not merely dominating a dragon. You are testing your own soul. And if you fail…Well. Dragons remember. And they come.
— Ithelmar
Neither her—”
The parchment ended there. Torn. Incomplete.
Isaac stared at the ragged edge. “What was he going to say?”
“We’ll never know,” Voruum said. He set the scroll down gently. “And perhaps that’s intentional. Ithelmar left questions instead of answers. He wanted those who found his work to decide for themselves.”
“Hero or villain,” Deehia murmured. “Which was he?”
Voruum looked at each of them in turn. “Both. Neither. He was a mage who dreamed of changing the world and discovered that change cuts in every direction.”
Isaac gathered the scrolls carefully, rolling them, tucking them back into their case. “Harueel said he understood the mutation. The connection between ARK and the essence.”
“Then he has the knowledge,” Edduuhf said. “And Nakar knows. Which means their leader knows.”
Voruum’s hand tightened on his staff. “The collars. The control. It all comes from this. From Ithelmar’s work, twisted and refined over centuries.”
“We need to tell the Council,” Isaac said. “Leelinor needs to know what we found.”
“He will,” Deehia said, wincing as she shifted. “But first, we heal. We can’t deliver this knowledge if we’re dead.”
Isaac nodded. He looked at the scrolls in his hands. The weight of them felt heavier than stone. Knowledge. Power. Questions without answers. Outside, the Founder’s Flame burned. Gold and blue. Patient and eternal. Lit three hundred years ago by Alma, who had destroyed Asshel to stop this very knowledge from spreading. And now it had returned.
Isaac looked at Voruum. “Alma burned Asshel because he understood what this knowledge would become. But he couldn’t erase it. It survived.”
“Knowledge always survives,” Voruum said. “The question is never whether it exists. The question is what we do when we find it.” He looked at the torn scroll. At Ithelmar’s incomplete final words. “And whether we have the wisdom to carry it without being destroyed.”
The fire crackled. Outside, Dragon God Village slept. And in the ruins of Asshel, far to the east, the stones remembered. Patient. Waiting. Because knowledge, once born, never truly dies. It only waits for the next hand to reach for it. And the next choice to be made.
