Mangowo
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Chapter 103: A Doll?
🕑 Added 2025-01-01 00:30:01 +0000 UTC[Happy New Year, everyone! Words can hardly capture just how grateful I am for the way this year wrapped up. A heartfelt thank you to this brilliant, supportive community for championing me as I poured my heart into what I love, crafting worlds for you to explore. Here’s to a fresh start, a new chapter! I promise to work even harder, spinning countless more stories to life. For now, though, my sights are set squarely on one. After all, Jade’s adventure is only just beginning, Lmao. Anyways, happy reading!]
“LOTTE!”
“You’ve returned so soon?”
“Well, whatever that was, it sucked me dry.” I flopped onto the grass like a sack of overly dramatic potatoes. “Could’ve given me a heads-up, you know.”
Lotte’s voice chimed in, calm as ever. “Had I believed such a notion conceivable, I would have acted accordingly.”
That set my scales tingling, my instincts prickling like a bad itch. “Then why do I feel like I sprinted laps around the planet?” My ears twitched, catching an odd, rhythmic noise in the background. “And what’s with that weird... glub-glub water sound?”
A low chuckle echoed in my mind as Lotte shifted her massive head, her gaze fixing on something in the distance.
I turned to follow her line of sight and froze. The air ahead was doing something it absolutely shouldn’t. It rippled—not like wind through tall grass but like someone had flicked a pebble into a pond made of reality itself. The grasslands twisted and shimmered in unnatural waves, the sound of churning water louder now.
Before I could ask what the hell, the distortion pulsed violently, and something oozed its way out.
First came a clawed, shadowy hand. Then a ragged robe. And finally, a doll—small, unsettling, and draped in lavender fabric that probably had a story involving cursed attics and bad decisions. Its glossy, beady eyes locked onto mine, and the swirling void in them oozed loathing so palpable I could practically taste it.
My scales bristled, a low growl escaping my throat.
But then it twitched. No, not just twitched—convulsed, like a marionette being yanked by a drunken puppeteer. Its head tilted awkwardly toward Lotte, who—blast her—merely chuckled again in my mind.
The doll’s response was… less composed. It let out a blood-curdling screech. The sound made my ears flatten as it grabbed its head, bashing it against the ground with terrifying force. Its porcelain hands shattered. Cracks spiderwebbed across its face. The lavender robe tore like tissue paper in a storm. And then, as if it realized melodrama wasn’t enough, it caught fire.
I barely had time to yelp before it exploded with a deafening BOOM!
Shrapnel flew everywhere, and a smoldering scrap of fabric arced through the air, landing squarely in my open mouth.
I blinked.
Then, with the sheer force of someone who had clearly given up on adhering to the conventions of normalcy, I chewed. Absently.
“Huh. Kinda... chewy.” There was a faint spice to it, the sort of heat that made you wonder if it was meant for digestion or as a prank. I nearly swallowed it, half-curious if it might grant me some Morphogens, before an invisible smack landed squarely on the back of my head.
“Bleh!” The scrap tumbled out of my mouth in a soggy heap, and I glared at Lotte.
“Refrain from consuming indiscriminate substances,” she admonished.
“You could’ve just told me!” I huffed, rubbing the back of my head. “No need to use the bonk of doom or whatever that was.”
But the main question lingered, pulling my attention back to the smouldering remnants. “What the hell was that thing? It just showed up, stared daggers at me, lost its bloody marbles when it saw you, and then decided to self-destruct in a blaze of glory. Seriously, what the fuck?”
Lotte didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she glanced around, her massive head tilting as if listening to some far-off frequency. Then, as if on cue, the scattered doll fragments began to shift. Slowly, unnervingly, they floated into the air, drawn together by an unseen force.
“Time and again, I’ve cautioned you,” Lotte murmured, “The world teems with peril, and even those who tread with utmost vigilance cannot evade every snare.”
I furrowed my scaly brow, defensive. “I didn’t do anything! I’ve been cautious! I’ve got the anti-divination charm you made me craft, and my room’s practically a fortress with all those wards you taught me. I’ve been careful—mostly.”
Lotte’s voice was patient, too patient. “Caution alone is a feeble shield. There are junctures where events transpire not because of what you’ve done, but simply because of your presence. An immutable truth of existence.”
The doll’s pieces wove themselves back together as she spoke. Shattered porcelain fused seamlessly, the scorched fabric repaired itself as if time had hit rewind. In no time, the grotesque figure stood as it had before, dark and whole.
“Even my vision is bound by limitations,” Lotte continued. “Perhaps the hour has come for you to master an alternate means of preservation.”
That made me sit straighter, even though she still hadn’t answered my original question about the doll. Not directly, anyway. But something about this felt disturbingly familiar, the same sense of exhaustion and wrongness I’d felt when Barn first wandered into this strange “dream” of mine. The doll hadn’t dragged me into a contract, though—or at least, I didn’t think it had.
My gaze flicked to the endless grassland around us, questions swirling like eddies in a deep pool. What was this place, really? Some natural phenomenon where even entities untethered to me could slip through? Did others have dreamscapes like this, vast and unexplored? Or was this another layer of the iceberg—another glimpse into the yawning abyss of what magic truly was?
Before I could voice the question, Lotte extended one of her massive claws, and a wave of shimmering light coalesced into a glowing symbol in front of her. Its design was striking yet cryptic: a sword, though curiously lacking a hilt, its blade surrounded by two serpentine waves that encircled it. At the top, a single dot hovered like a guiding star, and a perfect circle enclosed the entire symbol.
“A rune?” I asked, tilting my head.
“Form it,” Lotte commanded.
“Aye, aye.” No time to waste. I focused, letting mana flow through my body. I kept it neutral as it pooled at the tips of my claws, shaping it carefully into threads. My hands moved as if tracing an invisible blueprint, reconstructing the rune with deliberate precision. As the final thread snapped into place, the symbol gleamed brightly—and I felt it.
A drain. The rune was siphoning mana from me, drawing it steadily like an endless thirst.
“Excellent,” she observed intently. “Now, expel the mana that has transformed into spirituality from the rune. Channel this essence, distill it into your throat, your voice.”
Wait—spirituality? My ears perked up. I’d heard of spirituality before, but only in the context of high-level ritualists. It was a refined essence, far rarer than raw mana.
Still, I obeyed, compelling the rune to release its energy. At my will, a smoky, silvery haze rose from the rune, sparkling faintly. It felt alive—fluid yet steady—just like mana, but heavier, more potent. My fascination nearly got the better of me, but I kept control, guiding the silvery wisp into my throat as instructed.
“Good,” Lotte repeated. Her voice shifted into that melodic cadence again, heavy with authority. “Now, synchronize your voice with mine.”
“Huh?”
“Echo my words,” she clarified.
“The Eternal Arbiter of Sin and Virtue.”
I hesitated, but the command in her voice pushed me forward. “The Eternal Arbiter of Sin and Virtue.” The moment the words left my throat, I felt them pull at the gathered spirituality, draining a sliver of its power.
“Gaia’s First Daughter.”
“Gaia’s First Daughter.”
With each phrase, the weight in my throat grew heavier, the words demanding more from the concentrated spirituality.
“The Keeper of the Scales.”
“The Keeper of the Scales.”
“The Warden of Chains.”
“The Warden of Chains.”
“Mother of Silence, I beseech thee.”
“Mother of Silence, I beseech thee.”
The final phrase left my throat like a hammer striking stone. The concentrated spirituality sparked and vanished, leaving behind an odd emptiness as the air around us rippled faintly in response.
I tilted my head, ears twitching as if trying to catch the faint echoes of something unseen. “Well… that was something,” I muttered. “Feels like one of those chants priests used to recite. Y’know, trying to summon divine protection or something. Never actually saw it work, though. Always felt like random strings of words.”
Lotte didn’t respond immediately, but I caught the barest flicker of a knowing glance.
“Makes sense, I guess,” I continued, “since the gods abandoned this continent ages ago—at least, that’s what Gwen says. But this…” I gestured vaguely at the lingering ripples. “This isn’t one I’ve heard before. Are there new gods outside the continent?”
The elaborate titles gnawed at me. I’d read enough of Thalador’s Bible to recognize the grandeur associated with deities. These titles. Then, like a loose thread unraveling, a memory surfaced. “Wait. I have heard the name Gaia before. When I evolved, the dungeon told me I was in Her ‘embrace.’ Said I was protected or something. So, I always assumed She was the dungeon. Is that true?”
My curiosity flared. So many questions, so few answers. But as usual, Lotte’s inscrutable calm extinguished the spark.
“Do not trouble yourself over it,” she said simply.
But I wanted to trouble myself over it. My mind buzzed with questions, tangling and twisting into a knot of curiosity. Still, I knew there was no getting past Lotte. She was a wall, an immovable force in a world filled with unknowns. With a sigh, I shut up, biting back the words that wanted to spill out.
The world was dangerous, she’d said, time and again.
I turned my gaze to the doll in her hands, now fully reformed from the ruin it had been. But before I could even think to ask about it, there was something I needed to know.
“What would this chanting even do?” My voice was sharp with impatience. “As far as I know, gods won’t answer anyone’s call here. Not on this continent.”
Lotte’s expression didn’t shift. “You can access the dreamscape without needing to sleep that way,” she said simply. “Should you encounter metaphysical perils, it could prove your salvation. This world harbors dangers far more insidious than any you’ve faced.”
Her answer only stoked the flames of my curiosity. That chant—it wasn’t just a trick or a tool. It had invoked divinity, the presence of some goddess. My mind spiraled with possibilities, snagging on the first plausible one.
Was Lotte herself…?
No, that couldn’t be. Every record I’d read from the church was explicit: no mortal could stand in the presence of a god and survive. Minds turned to mush; souls shattered. Even the most devout priests had never claimed to directly speak with a deity.
Maybe this place was imbued with lingering divinity—something tied to its very fabric. That would explain the strange connection I felt to it, to Lotte. Perhaps she was using that power to sustain this space. Or maybe… maybe it was just another bizarre dragon thing that I didn’t understand.
The not-knowing burned at me. My desire for answers felt like a weight. It was heavy and unrelenting.
Pushing those thoughts aside, I latched onto a different subject. One that had been itching at the back of my mind. “Speaking of weird dragon things,” I began, “I think I might finally have the ingredients for the ritual to turn Belle into my supplicant! I just need to visit that hidden market in the slums for a few items. But…” I hesitated, my claws tapping lightly against the ground. “Trouble is, I’ve no clue where to find it. I’m too afraid to, you know... talk to people. What if that left some traces? So, I just skulk and eavesdrop.”
Lotte chuckled, a quiet sound that somehow felt both reassuring and ominous. “That might change soon,” she said. “Perhaps, instead, someone will seek you out.”
I blinked. “Who?”
“Merely a golden thread I glimpsed,” she said cryptically. “Do not be alarmed when it ensnares you.”
Golden thread? My brain whirred, but nothing came to mind. Whoever it was, I’d find out soon enough. Or rather—they’d find me. And, if I was being honest, I needed connections. There was only so much a sneaky little dragon could accomplish on her own. If Lotte said someone would appear, I was inclined to believe her.
“Alright,” I muttered, shifting my weight. “Anything else you want to tell me? Especially about this doll?”
The air shifted before she could answer. The doll shuddered, and faint ripples of runes appeared over its beady eyes. An unseen force cocooned it, trembling with an almost tangible fear. I’d seen that fear before—Barn had been the same way. Slowly, the force eased, setting the doll gently on the ground before me.
“Just a lost soul,” Lotte said. “I’ve made adjustments—it should no longer exhibit hostility upon your waking.”
I picked up the doll gingerly, its trembling form fitting awkwardly in my claws. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me. The scene felt eerily familiar.
“Is it going to be useful to me?” I asked, tilting my head.
“Not much,” she admitted, “Unless, of course, you’re pitted against another wielder of lightning magic. But there’s an absence you must address—divination. The doll will serve as your conduit. And remember, every precaution you take in this volatile world will always fall short.”
Her gaze drifted into the distance, as if she could see dangers I couldn’t begin to fathom. “Do whatever is necessary to endure.”
I studied the doll in silence, then glanced back at Lotte. “Even now that I’ve gained some power?”
“Especially now that you’ve gained some power,” she said with a chuckle.
Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.
I tightened my grip on the shivering doll, feeling its faint tremors. At least I had something to show for all of this. But watching Lotte—and Gwen, for that matter—go on about how dangerous the world was without ever telling me how felt maddening. It was as if even knowing the truth might destroy me.
Fine. If knowledge wouldn’t come easily, then I’d make myself strong enough to uncover it on my own. I needed to grow, to evolve.
Good thing I had another method of leveling up. Maybe it was finally time to test how efficient it could be.
Comments
IDK
Doll friend? Doll friend, wooooo Edit: Why do I feel like Jade is going to collect nightmare fuel for friends now? Our favorite bone snake, Gwen, the doll...
Ulsar
happy new years
Shelbo
Hooray for mama Lotte! This is the second time mama Lotte scared something so bad it basically shat itself, is this basically dragon nepotism?
jeffh4
Did not see this development coming in the slightest. How cool is that? Very cool from my perspective.
Hibou Ronchon
I'm sure no one will find a tamed doll suspicious. At all.
Razafarian
Tftc and happy new year! That was a nice chapter, but, and maybe I'm alone in feeling this, felt kinda slow. I would've recommended doing one chapter focusing on what happens to the doll in the dreamscape and doing some relationship building between the doll and jade. And then do a separate chapter with lotte training jade on how to better protect herself. This chapter just felt like it was trying to squeeze in both sides of the story without accomplishing much with respect to either.
