Adamant Blood 043 - 065(ish?) - Origin Story (Patreon)

Here's 59k for part 2 of the story.

As you can see, the name changed. This is a much better name! Thank you to patrons who convinced me to change the name, and Tmarkos with the specific suggestion!

I'll begin uploading the story to RR and begin with making this the new web serial soon-ish.

THERE ARE SOME CHANGES TO PART 1.

In general, Mark is less angry at the dragon because he watched a video from his parents, made in the event that they were going to die, because it seemed very likely. Here now is that scene:

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This scene takes place just after Mark reads his the letters from his mom and dad.

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“Ahhh,” Mark breathed out. “This sucks.”

An understatement if there ever was one.

Mark carefully packed the letters away, being careful of the fresh tears he had dropped onto all of Mom’s essay and onto Dad’s 1-page of letter and 2-pages of ‘how to be an adult’.

It wasn’t enough to remember them by.

It was all he had left of—

There was that video recording.

Right.

Mark steeled himself, not sure if he could handle seeing their faces and hearing their voices right now, but he was going to try. He picked up the phone that had come in the communication package… He stared at the phone for a little while. And then he poked around at a few options until he found the one he wanted.

A bright gold application glowed in the app menu. It was labeled COFR, or rather ‘Citadel of Freyala Resources’.

Mark pressed the button.

Golden light spilled out from his phone, along with a feminine voice, “Greetings, Mark Careed. How may COFR help you today?”

“I want… I want to see the video that my parents recorded… for me.”

“I can assist you with that.”

A button propagated. It was labeled ‘Home Movies’.

Mark furrowed his brow a little at the naming of the icon, but then he clicked on it and he almost broke down crying again. It was all of Mark’s videos taken with his previous phone, transferred across the globe and into this phone, probably through the grid and City AIs talking to each other. It was also linked to his parents’ social media videos, that they had taken over the years. There were Dad’s fishing videos. There were Mom’s videos that she used to take all the time about editing tips, and when she went out to her friends’ houses for parties. Vacation memories at the beach and—

And there was a video labeled ‘For Mark. In case the worst should happen.’

Mark pressed play.

Mom and Dad stood in a concrete bunker room, like the one they had in the basement of the house. There was a nice light and some nice furniture, and it looked sort of cozy, but it was a bunker room. The walls were concrete. Mom wore that comfy sweater she always liked, and Dad wore jeans and a shirt. Both of them were looking at the camera—

Mom teared up instantly, like she was happy crying at a wedding, or watching a good movie. She smiled, and that was all she could do, save for softly whispering, “I’m sorry— You start, Markus.”

Dad put an arm around Mom and Mom tried to bring it back together, as Dad said, “Hey, Mark. We’re here at day 4 of quarantine…” He was smiling a lot, too. “But we’ve seen pictures of you, getting bigger and stronger out there with some fresh weapons!”

Tears streamed down Mark’s face as he smiled to see both of them look happy.

Mom choked up, but she managed to say, “You look so good out there, Mark!”

Dad said, “We heard that treatment is working out well for you! And it really is!”

Mom breathed. She got in control and then she said, “You’re going to do wonderful…” And then she choked up again, and this time her joy was smaller, quieter, becoming a sadness. She controlled herself while Dad held her hand tightly, and then she said, “We’re kinda freehanding this, Mark. We never expected to be in this position, but we’re glad to be here, too.”

Dad said, “Your words there, before we left. You quoted Glorious Man and a bit of Dad— your grandpa, too. Humanity helps each other. That is what we do. And you’re right. That is what we do.”

Mom strongly said, “If it was one of us in your position we would do the same thing, and we would hope that the others would understand. And we do understand, Mark. We understand a lot. We hope this video never needs to reach you, but if it was us, we would want to know that we didn’t leave the others wondering…” She breathed. She said, “We do the right thing, even if it hurts, and the right thing is to bring Addashield back to humanity.”

Mom was the one holding on strongly to Dad’s hand, now.

Dad squared himself, and said, “We raised you well, son. No trauma in this household!”

Mom chuckled through the tears. “When this thing with Addashield works out, don’t blame yourself for what happens to us.”

Dad said, “Don’t live your life for revenge. Don’t give yourself that sort of trauma.”

Mom said, “Live your life to help people, just like you always wanted. You’re good at that!”

“But you should absolutely sue Addashield for what he has done in his near-Fall.”

“Sue that fucker! He’s absolutely going to have a world-action lawsuit against him, like what they did to Verdant Guardian in the 2000’s when she did that plant manipulation that turned monstrous.”

“Just don’t make that consume your life, either. Hop into the world-action suit and let the lawyers take it over for you. And live your life how you want!”

Mom smiled. “We love you, Mark.”

Dad grinned. “We love you, son.” And then he steeled himself, and said, “If the worst should happen and you get this video, then call my brother and his husband. Memphi is a great place to live. Obviously, you should live your life wherever you want, but make that place your home. They’ve told us that our home is probably not going to survive. We hope that it does! But…” He frowned.

Mom was calm as she said, “They’re probably going to blow it up the second you take the Tutorial and leave the space, just so they get a clean shot at whatever comes out of there with Addashield.”

Dad sighed. “Yeah. The house is probably toast. I had a lot of good memories, there. I hope you did, too, Mark. We asked for all of our videos online to be curated for you, and the City AI did that… or at least that was the plan. I recorded some stuff in there to tell you if you get married! And a few other things! Some of them are even funny. Look them up sometime!”

Mom choked up again.

Dad held Mom, saying, “Your mother did, too.”

Mom nodded.

“I love you, son. Goodbye.”

Mom said, “I love you, Mark. Goodbye.”

The video ended there.

Tears fell and Mark’s emotions were somewhere around here, but he could not grasp them at all.

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... Also the dragon now calls Mark 'his brother' in the brief snippets of recorded video Mark has seen of him.

All in all, some really good changes, IMO!!!

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Thanks for reading!

I have uploaded epub and PDF!