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Mark sat down in a nice library-like room with plush chairs. A viewing screen took up an entire wall, showing off the outside, making the room feel almost like a balcony on the edge of a normal ship. But they were on Grey Whale, the hovership of the settlement project, and Mark was on deck 5, L-8, in one of the meeting rooms of House Metallic. Countess Marigold Metallic, the Master of Coin for the settlement project, sat down on a matching chair, to face Mark, smiling gently.

She was a mousy kinda woman who was wearing a soft pink dress today, and her hair and lipstick had been colored to match her dress. With an easy sort of way, she said, "I'm glad we can meet again, Mark."" Thank you for taking the appointment, Marigold." A guy in a butler suit placed a tray between Mark and Marigold. Tea steamed in the air and butter cookies waited to be eaten. The butler left just as quickly as he came, shutting the door behind him.

The door's edges flashed with light, the silencing enchantments activating. Marigold wasted no time, saying, "All cards on the table: We won't be selling Addavein's adamantium, or anything that comes from him. Please don't try to circumvent this restriction. If we find out that you purposefully sold us Addavein's adamantium and it got into the supply, then we would take legal action against you based on the Anti-Dragon Accords of the Aluatha Empire and the Humanity Accords of 1978.

Expect exile from the settlement project should that happen and heavy restrictions on every other city out there that you attempt to join." She added, "After hearing this, if you continue to wish to try and deceive us by passing Addavein's adamantium off as your own, then please let us end this meeting now, and we can simply part ways; no harm done.

If, however, we discover that you have covertly sold Addavein's adamantium to others, then we will be pursuing action against you using the same methodology we would have used had you attempted to sell us Addavein's adamantium." She was serious. Marigold's vector was pointed at Mark in an unkind, yet hopeful way. She was prepared to be furious and disappointed, and Mark was stunned by the severity of her vector.

Mark had come into this meeting expecting to play hardball, but he had not expected it to happen so fast. Marigold waited for his response, but as Mark was taking time to figure out the severity of her statement, her vector turned from hopeful/angry, to just angry. Her face never shifted from perfectly poised, though. Marigold eventually breathed deep, then—" Sorry. Wait a second, please," Mark said.

"I'm trying to… You know about Unionsense, yes? I can tell you're absolutely furious at me, and I think you think you know why you should be mad at me, because of Addavein, but… I'm not trying to deceive you and pass off Addavein's adamantium as my own." I'm…" I'm adamantium blooded. There. That's the big secret… And I can already tell you're reassessing a lot, and even me telling you about the Unionsense thing is freaking you out some, and I apologize.

I am not sure what happened here, or what happened in that meeting four days ago before the crossing with the crown. I do know that I have another extra kilogram of adamantium here that I made, all by myself, and that I will probably be donating to Tulo Kahva unless you have some other suggestion as my banker... Accountant. Whatever. If you still want to do that." Mark knew he still needed a competent accountant on his side, though, but that would come out later. A lot happened inside of Marigold as Mark spoke.

When Mark had told Aurora about his ability to make adamantium, she had had a lot more on her mind than just money. Aurora was juggling 10, 000 people with 100, 000 needs. Aurora had reacted rather calmly because Mark was just one more Big Thing among all the other Very Big Things that she was juggling. Marigold was reacting a lot more… strongly. She was laser focused.

According to Mark's research of the past few days, while he had nothing to do but read up on the people, Marigold was entirely focused on money and safety, and, according to Aurora, on the metal blooded people in the project. House Metallic was responsible for all of the mithril blooded, after all. Probably the orichalcum blooded people, too, if there were any of those people around. No adamantium blooded, though. Those people were rare. And 'rare' meant many different, important things.

Marigold was also a lot more turbulent upon hearing that Mark could suss out her emotions so easily, as well as the absolute bombshell that he was adamantium blooded. Adamantium blooded Adamantiumkinetics just didn't happen. Mark kinda wondered why that particular combination didn't happen, since he had been seeded with adamantium in order to be granted Adamantiumkinesis in the Tutorial, but… maybe he could get that sort of question answered today, too. It wasn't like Mark could talk to Addavein about this stuff.

Marigold continued to have a Moment. Mark breathed deep. He gestured to the tea.

"This looks lovely." Marigold rapidly took to Mark's offered conversation, picking up her own tea and then setting it down and adding sugar, saying, "We have three people in House Metallic with Knacks for cooking and various food preparation. The tea is made by Diviner Lia. She can do a tea reading if you wish for one. This tea has no leaves in it though, of course."

Mark added a bit of sugar to his own steaming tea and sipped it, tasting something that made him think of a chilly Fall evening, but wrapped up in a warm center.

"It's good tea. I understand Earth has a whole thing with tea leaf reading over in Japan. I didn't know that Daihoon had the same. Is Diviner Lia a Seer?" Seers were about 1 out of every 100 Awakened people, as far as Mark knew. They could divide off pieces of their astral body and affect things at great distances, and still be connected to those distant pieces of themselves, unlike everyone else. Unlike Mark, or Isoko, Sally, or Eliot, or everyone else he knew, really.

Marigold said, "Convergent evolution happens in culture, too. A lot of happenings develop independently, on opposite sides of the worlds, but end up looking the same in the end. Most random happenstance, from the spilling of pig guts to the formations of birds in flight, to the distribution of tea leaves at the bottom of cups, can all be used for divination purposes.

Diviner Lia is not a Seer, but, if you follow the rituals with clarity and purpose, and if you understand that the end result is open to a great deal of interpretation, certain things can be done by anyone." Mark nodded, hearing most of that, but mostly he was focused on Marigold's transforming vector. She was coming to grips with something very, very large, her vector spread in many directions, focused on many things. Her focus seemed to be expanding.

And then Marigold went silent, looking off to the side, at the viewing screen. Mark looked to the side with her. The skies of Daihoon were cloudy and blue today, just like on Earth, but on Daihoon, they were only blue when looked at through a great distance, like on the horizon. At the top of the screen, where the sun shone straight down, Mark saw soft rainbows. Clouds obscured most of the true distance out there, but the sky over there, at the horizon, was blue.

At night, on Earth, the sky was blue-black and stars shone in the vastness of space. At night, on Daihoon, the sky was full of dark auroras, almost fully black-blue just like on Earth, but where the stars shone and where the arm of the Milky Way stretched, the sky was alight with tiny, flickering rainbows. When the moon was in the sky and bright, it was almost like a second sun. Endless Daihoon shone through the sky, no matter where you looked. It was never fully dark on Daihoon.

Mark and Marigold looked out at the sky for a little bit longer. Mark found that he did not hate the silence. Marigold eventually asked, "Do you know the story of the Dragon King?"" I do not," Mark easily said, "I was raised Orthodox Curtain, if you want to call it that. Some people have." Marigold nodded, fully expecting that.

"The original story is 4, 000 years old, about a thousand years after the Magefall that caused the Separation of Worlds. We mostly know those numbers based on the generalizations and exactitudes that the demons are willing to give our archmages, but those exact dates are, as you can imagine, unreliable. Demons are always working angles against each other, and humans are forever their playthings. The same can be said for dragons."

"… I can imagine that, yes," Mark said, knowing that Marigold was speaking for the sake of speaking. Maybe she was as nervous as Mark right now. Marigold continued, "The original story of the Dragon King is not the popular version today, though the original was a popular version at the time; that is the only reason why we even know the story these days, 4, 000 years later. The original story is about a guy who raises a kingdom and who gets one over on everyone he encounters.

From demons to dragons to other kings and otherwise. He makes a kingdom. It's prosperous and wonderful, and everyone thinks he will solve the problem of the dragons and the demons, because he has so many on his side. He lived for 200 years, constantly making Daihoon a better place. He sends out armies against the demons to try and restore Arakino to glory, to cut down the demons who control everything. Never works, of course, but those stories are always a 'We're so close!

Just one more try, and this time we'll get it right!' sort of thing. The original story was always full of hope for salvation, and even those incursions against the demons were successful in small ways." The Dragon King's signature is… was a 10-taloned crown, like the one you made out of your adamantium." Mark felt a few things click into place.

"Ah… So…" Mark had a think that got him nowhere, and then he said, "The original story ends in tragedy." Marigold smiled sadly.

"Yes. The original story is a tragedy." She gestured to the viewing screen, though she was really gesturing to the entire world, as she said, "As you know some history, I assume, you know that the Reveal and the work of the Two Worlds, countless new technologies, millions of people, and several very crucial people, is the only thing that actually saved us at all. The dragons and the demons did as they wanted during the Reveal, of course, and threatened to kill us all.

But it was the work of civilizations to pull us back from the brink, to bring us to the state we are today; a state of prosperity, where the New Pantheon enables us to continue to grow, and thrive, and drive out the evils of our Two Worlds.

"… Anyway." As for the Dragon King." When he failed to achieve what everyone wanted of him, and when he died… no one knows how he died, exactly, only that he did. The stories are muddled." When he died, the world broke just that much more." 4, 000 years ago we had, according to the historians, a few tens of empires, each maybe half of the size of the Empire of Aluatha, the Dominion of Okuana, and, when taken as a whole, the Settlement of Xerkona.

All of those unknown empires broke in a cascading failure that would be continually repeated from then unto the Reveal. People made empires and dragons and demons killed empires. When the empires got big enough to break even more on the way down, that's when it got bad. We call those particular failures 'Magefalls', and you can always point to one big incident that causes every Magefall. The Reveal could have been yet another Magefall, but instead, we ended up with the Reveal. Love what you're reading?

Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on." The atomic bombs of Earth helped Daihoon stabilize a lot." The original story of the Dragon King, told during his time, is one of triumph and hope for the future." His story today is one of hubris and the evils of trusting one person to actually solve any real problems. So… When you adopt that crown of 10 points, that is the history you play upon.

It's basically bedtime stories for kids and some popular fiction out there— It's a trope in fiction.

'The Dragon King' is about hubris and downfall and the inherent problems in trusting in people who have too much power. The nuances change, but the basic fiction is in that general direction." Marigold finished. That was a lot of stuff that Mark did not know. Mark sat in his chair, thinking. Mark asked, "Is that a… a popular story? I haven't made any actual declarations as a villain for the Hero/Villain program yet, but I was thinking of doing the tyrant-king-thing… but maybe I should change it?

To avoid that history?" Mark wasn't actually asking for Marigold's guidance, but instead to get a sense if he should rethink certain things. He was rather popular in the common news cycle these days, so if he leaned into this whole Dragon-King-thing, then maybe people would… What? Leave him alone? Would that be a good thing?" Dragon King fiction is not a very popular part of fiction these days," Marigold said, "But if you took up a Tyrant King persona then eventually people would connect you to that history.

Honestly, I think you should wear the 10-point crown, specifically to adopt that history. The fact that you are the Dragon's Brother sort of... cinches all of that into a neat little bundle of ideas that people can relate to based on existing fiction. I'm not sure how it would work out, for I am not a media analyst, but you should bring it up with your handlers in the Villain Program. They'd have a better finger to all of that than I."

What I can tell you, however, is that a popular villain can make just as much money as a popular hero, and I doubt that you being adamantium blooded will be a true issue for you. You'll be making millions on movie deals, if you want." Marigold added, "There's a lot to talk about regarding all of that, of course, but I can tell you that House Metallic can easily meet your needs as both a supervillain and adamantium blooded.

We can even offer you some basic protection services, as we would to all of our metal blooded people, but I doubt you actually need them. Obviously you wouldn't want to spread around the fact that you're adamantium blooded, and House Metallic can keep that secret in confidence as well as sell whatever adamantium you wish to offload, but we would have to tell certain people in certain circles where we're getting the adamantium from, so that we're not held liable under the Humanity Accords."

Marigold was right; there was a lot to talk about regarding all of that. But her tone and her vector had aligned in calm certainty, and Mark was feeling the same way. She had given Mark a good lay of the land. Now, they had to get down to actual matters. Maybe even some real numbers. Mark said, "Thank you for the information about the Dragon King. I'll take that up that whole… trope and story idea with the Program, with Noel Oliphant. On the surface, right now, I think I like the Dragon King everything a whole lot.

You know… I wanted to be a superhero. I still do, even after everything that has happened. I don't actually care about fame, though, and I would prefer for people not to see me as…" Mark searched for the words.

"People don't need to see me as a hero before I have actually become a hero. I haven't really done anything. Not yet. And even if I do end up doing something amazing, I'm fine with just going back out and doing it again. So taking on the persona of a character from ancient history that everyone assumes will fail, and whom they don't want to associate with… that sounds good, to me. I don't need to be anyone's worshiped hero."

Mark had another thought, and added, "And me being a failed king would push Addavein toward adopting the idea of democracy being the way forward, yeah? That sounds like a winning idea." Marigold easily said, "Don't attempt to politic around dragons. It always ends poorly." Mark smirked a little.

"But for 200 years it worked well!" Marigold's eyebrows went up, and then she laughed once.

"That's a dangerous level of confidence." Mark was suddenly struck by a fact he had been told years ago, by his Tutorial trainer at highschool, that was relevant right now. Mark tried to recall the whole saying, but the words started tumbling out before he was fully ready." You have to have a dangerous level of confidence to go out into the wilds day after day, to face fears and conquer them, because if you don't, then you're gonna die to fear before you could ever die to what would have actually killed you." And…

yeah. That was mostly correct. Marigold smirked a little. And then she asked, "What kind of sales of adamantium are you looking to achieve?" Mark said, "I can make about 1 kilo per 6 days if I am focused on nothing but that, but I will be focused on a lot more than that... And I don't want to actually sell it. Not much. I gave some to the settlement project for a kaiju blade, and I plan to do that a lot... Eliot is making buildings, and I think he already has an account with you?" Marigold tentatively nodded.

"Yes. Eliot has an account with us—" She strongly asked, "So you don't want to sell the adamantium?"" I want to sell some adamantium and get several million goldleaf and then funnel most of that money back into protective measures for the settlement. I want to make sure that this thing succeeds, wildly, and that I get a flying castle and learn all of the magic without getting demons involved and I want to kill kaiju…"

Mark was really getting into it, but he pulled back some because even he could tell his enthusiasm needed dampening. He finished with, "And if dragons become problems, then I want to kill them, too." Marigold nodded, and then she began, "Several million goldleaf as a start? You have a false idea of how much money it takes to make a flying castle or to learn true magic. To start with, a flying castle requires as much upkeep as the Grey Whale, and the starting realm for such a cost is from 750, 000, 000 to 2.

5 billion goldleaf as an initial cost and then an easy 500 million per year. Mage school is much cheaper at 250, 000 per year, but that's basic training. If you want to learn 'all of the magic' then that is 20 years of study and running up an increasingly large budget, sometimes totaling a billion goldleaf per year.

Admittedly, you'd have to go through a bunch of adamantium in order to learn how to work adamantium, and that would be a major expense you could forgo, but I will not discount that part of the lay of the land. The nature of your desires can only really be met by a noble house. Are you planning on becoming a noble, or attaching to a noble house?" … Those were some big numbers. But not outside of Mark's expectations. Not really. Mark said, "I'll do my own noble house eventually.

Aurora has told me what it will require. It's not anything I'm interested in pursuing at this exact instance in time. What I do want to pursue is… Well. To start smaller, I want to make sure my team is going to be okay if something should happen to me, and I want to give good weapons to people so that the settlement is safer. I'm imagining making adamantium swords for certain people, or whatever it needs to be. I haven't gone to the Builder Guild or the Artificer Guild yet, but those people are next on my list.

Tulo Khava knows about the adamantium blood thing, and I have an appointment with him in a few hours." Marigold nodded.

"That's a more reasonable starting point. I suggest you make do with the normal ways in which we'll be bringing money into the settlement, through monster hunts and kills and such, for a little while. Months, perhaps.

When you can locate an adamantium monster in the wilds to hunt, or if you 'find deposits in the ground somewhere', then we can talk about offloading adamantium and making major purchases, but until then, House Metallic is also selling all of the normal monster parts to Crytalis and the Aluatha Empire, so we'll be working together a lot. Now are there any questions you have? Otherwise I'll be putting together some information packages about investment plans and locating a personal accountant for your needs.

I have two in mind, and maybe a third one, if they want to move out of Crytalis." Mark felt good about this. Mark stood, saying, "I don't have any questions at this time, and I'm fine with a delay on adamantium sales. I imagine I'll be working with Aurora and Tulo Khava for a while." Marigold stood, nodding.

There were a few more pleasantries, and exchanges of information, with Mark using Quark to talk to House Metallic's AI and do some quick exchanges, and then Mark was out of there, walking down the hall, feeling pretty accomplished. He imagined being a Dragon King, and found the idea more and more palatable for reasons he didn't quite understand. Was the allure of it the idea of just being unabashedly free with his power? With saying 'fuck you' to Curtain Protocol?

With tearing monsters apart and bringing forth peace and hope to all humanity? … Which one did he like more? Tearing monsters apart, or the end result of killing monsters? Oh… Well… Equally, right? Mark was pretty sure he was perfectly happy right now… walking hallways and having meetings with people… Er… no. He didn't actually like this all that much, but it was necessary. …

Maybe he needed to do something that would minimize his time making decisions about money and other shit like that, because, another thought occurred, and threw everything into disarray. Mark imagined being rich. Truly rich. Fuck off rich. Buy-you-sell-you kinda rich. Because that's what having millions of goldleaf would do. … huh. Mark found that whole idea of being super rich weirdly off putting for reasons he couldn't understand— Well. He could understand, actually. He didn't want to deal with money.

He wanted to solve actual problems.