Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

Tales of Pandora

Origins of Salizar: chapter 15 ~biding time~

“This is it?” Salizar asked. “Affirmative, this egg will hatch the supreme being you requested.” The Overseer said. “Good.” Salizar said. “How long until it hatches?” Salizar asked. “T-minus 5 days 17 hours.” The Overseer replied. “Of course.. always with the waiting. When will the humans enter the boss arena?” Salizar asked. “Approximately… tonight.” The Overseer said. “and you didn’t think THAT WOULD BE A PROBLEM!! THIS COULD RUIN MY ENTIRE PLAN!” Salizar sighed, regaining his cool, “well then we must stall.” He said.

King Drake sat atop his illustrious throne, gazing at the night sky through his stained glass window high above him, the aurora gleaming through the colored glass. “Beautiful, isn’t it Grizzly.” He said. “They would’ve loved it sire.” Grizzly said. The king had just gotten back to somewhat of a normal after his daughter’s death, Primalis’s death helped with this, since he still blamed the man. “Tonight, we shall enter the final obelisk and maybe we will finally escape this hell.” Drake said. Grizzly grunted in agreement, though he did sort of enjoy life on the ARK. Just then a servant burst into the room unannounced, “sire! There are about twenty glowing abominations climbing the wall!” The servant said, he did not know they were machines, being from the medieval era himself. “Grizzly, protect the trophies, it seems this place doesn’t want us to conquer it.” King Drake said as he followed the servant out of the room.

“The diversion seems to have worked, all of the guards are leaving their posts, only one lifeform is detected within the main castle.” The Overseer said. “Good, send me in.” Salizar said. Salizar felt strange as he teleported into the castle. he looked around him, he was inside a bedroom. “Where is the treasury from here I wonder..” Salizar asked himself.

Caesar heard the alarm horns blast as he was gathering medical supplies for the dragon battle, King Drake decided his heightened intellect would be perfectly put to work as a field medic. He finished stuffing things in his satchel and ran out into the town’s streets to see what the commotion was about, he was about to run down to the battlefield when he heard glass shattering, he looked up to the castle and saw a hooded figure climbing the wall, it looked like the small figure had come out of a bedroom and was now scaling the side of the castle towards the throne room’s stained glass window. “It’s a diversion..” he said to himself. He didn’t like the humans or care if their stuff was stolen but he was curious, so he made his way towards the castle.

Salizar had decided he didn’t want to wander the maze of corridors and instead took a more direct route, he broke the window and made his way outside the castle towards the throne room, he had a feeling the massive stained glass circle was the right place so he broke one of the panes and crawled through. Nobody was inside, so he dropped down to the ground. He was a vain creature of course and couldn’t help but to sit in the throne. “Ahh this feels right.” He said blissfully, but he had work to do, so he started to search the room for the secret entrance, Dr. Flight and Haze had mentioned the secret treasury before but he didn’t know where the entrance was he was looking around the wall behind the throne when he noticed the classic tell of a secret bookshelf, scratched flooring. Only this time it was the throne that had these marks, after a quick inspection of the throne he found a small switch under the right arm of the throne, the chair rumbled and started to move to the left, underneath was a trapdoor. “Jackpot.” Salizar said. He swung the trapdoor open and went down the ladder, this let him into a long stone hallway. “Great, more walking..” Salizar said.

It turned out that this was not a hallway but a labyrinth, luckily he noticed huge boot prints in the sandy floor and was able to follow them, he made sure to shuffle his own feet to obscure his prints. He finally made it to a shabby looking rusty old door. He opened it only to see Grizzly standing inside the large room, mountains of gold and riches around him, the artifacts highest above the rest on a golden shelf, he was holding a massive Viking battle axe. “So, you’re the one that’s been killing my men? No more..” he said threateningly. Salizar started hooting and acting stupid like a real mesopithicus, Grizzled looked confused for a moment until he felt the pain of three knives in his chest, this only angered the brutish man, he growled and roared at Salizar, who rightfully guessed that this man was the famous “Grizzly” leader of the king’s army and trusted advisor. Grizzly charged at Salizar with his axe he made a low sideways slash and Salizar jumped over it onto a support beam on the ceiling, he looked down at Grizzly, who pulled out a tomahawk and threw it at Salizar with such force it destroyed the beam, Salizar jumped out of the way just in time, he pulled out a Tek pistol he acquired at the starlit sanctuary and set it to kill, he blasted Grizzly with it who blocked the beam with his axe, then he put down the axe and blocked with his bare hand, walking towards Salizar, he got close enough and grabbed the barrel of the gun, smashing it with his fist, the pistol exploded, knocking them both back, Salizar recovered slightly and noticed the ceiling, the board Grizzly destroyed was in fact structural support, the rock ceiling was starting to collapse, Salizar started to crawl up the pile of coins towards to artifacts, but Grizzly recovered too, he went after him, slipping onto his chest and crawling towards Salizar. He grabbed Salizar’s leg when he was within reach of the artifacts, he kicked Grizzly in the face as the beast of a man tried to pull him down, he pulled out an implant from his bag and absorbed the artifacts into it, just in time too, because Grizzly’s foot slipped and they both slid down the mound of riches, Grizzly let go of him on the way down and he tumbled away, the ceiling suddenly collapsed right above Grizzly and hit his back and head, he was out cold. Salizar put the implant back in his pouch, quickly collecting his knives from Grizzly’s chest and the floor, and ran.

It took Caesar a few minutes to get to the throne room, the seat was still off to the side with the trapdoor exposed, he went in. Salizar had messed up the tracks so Caesar couldn’t follow the path as well as he did, he ran through the maze, he heard Grizzly roar and yell, the laser blast and explosion particularly confused him. He was trying to follow the commotion, then he heard the massive crash of rocks falling from the ceiling, he was close he ran on all fours as a chimpanzee would, he turned a corner and saw a black blur in the dimly torch lit cavern, he followed it, it was certainly faster than him, but it led him out of the maze and back into the throne room, when he ascended the ladder he looked up to the window, it had started raining and water was flowing in through the broken pane, and there it was the hooded figure, he couldn’t tell who or what it was, but he saw the eyes, one green one yellowish, they narrowed at the sight of him, thunder struck out the window. Caesar blinked at the figure was gone.

When the guards and King Drake finally returned to the castle after the enforcers retreated Caesar showed them down to the treasury, Grizzly’s body lay under stones and the artifacts were gone, a few soldiers lifted up the rubble and Grizzly took a huge breath in coughing up blood and powder. “What happened.” King Drake asked calmly, even though he was furious. “I-I, can’t remember your majesty. One minute I’m talking to you topside, then it’s all a blur.” Grizzly said as Caesar tended to his wounds. “WHO COULD HAVE BESTED MY MOST POWERFUL SOLDIER TO THE POINT OF AMNESIA!” King Drake roared. “I’m sorry sire..” Grizzly said. King Drake turned and walked out of the room.

“So, Caesar is alive. Interesting, I should probably remove this eye so he doesn’t catch on in the future, unless he dies with the rest, isn’t that right my little Apex.” Salizar looked down to the incubator, the little black and red dragon sitting in a broken shell looked up at him, smiled and said, “Fathhhr”