Rising From Avarice, Gaining New Friends

by KingReptarAlmighty

Ch. 5: The Village

Spike stared at where his friends had taken their path out of the forest. He swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in his throat that had formed during their near-tearful goodbye, and he felt a strange tightness in his chest as he forced himself to turn away from the path, walking back towards the gigantic tree.

“Spike, you know it’s okay if you need a minute,” Kipkirui said. Spike simply shook his head, and sniffed hard, forcing it all back. Kipkirui looked at him with a furrowed brow and wide eyes, like he didn’t believe Spike. Still, he didn’t push. “Well, if you’re sure, let’s head inside. You’ll get a kick out of the doors opening.”

He motioned for Spike to back up, who quickly took a few steps back. Kipkirui tapped on the bark of the tree, and a single, relatively uniform crack glowed brightly, before spreading along in an arc, forming a very large pair of arch top doors. Rather than swing open slowly like Spike had expected, the doors swung open with gusto, and Spike realized then why Kipkirui had told him to stand back. If he hadn’t, he could’ve very well been hit, and thrown a very good distance away, not to mention the force of the initial impact likely could’ve broken bones.

Well, if he wasn’t a dragon it could have. He still remembered how terrified Twilight had been when that heavy ladder had fallen on him. Honestly, the thing that had been hurt worst after that was his pride. And his willingness to go on tall ladders.

“Those seem excessive.”

“Height, maybe. Width, no. I’m lucky, doors aren’t bad for me with my horn width, but my uncle probably wouldn’t be able to fit anywhere in my house.” Spike blinked.

“How-”

“Around 5 feet from end to end.” Kipkirui started walking like he hadn’t said something nearly unbelievable to Spike, and Spike had no choice but to follow along.

The town was incredible. It was jaw-droppingly huge, and while Spike had had expectations based on the size of Kipkirui’s house, this literally exceeded every single one. Aside from the sheer size of the interior, it was designed so intricately, and yet so naturally that it looked as if it could’ve grown that way. The interior walls were composed of titanic, jutting shards of amethyst glittery and free of imperfections, but deliberately rounded out so as to not have any chance of cutting someone. There were ring-shaped floors far below the entrance floor, and floors far above it, all of which had multiple bridges leading into the center area, sort of like a wheel, where intricately carved crystal platforms seemed to be teleporting people to different stores and floors. The exterior edge was lined with a few shops and other buildings built into the walls, but the bridges and the interior edge of the ring-shaped main platforms were lined with residential houses, which he began to realize were deliberately built on crystal platforms so you could look into the space above. The entrance floor lacked the residential buildings, having only the crystal platforms. He was in a perpetual state of awe as his eyes caught more and more details, and he only snapped out of it when he saw Kipkirui staring at him.

“It’s incredible.”

“Only the first 100 times you see it. After that it’s really just routine. C’mon, we should see about getting you some books for your bed shelf.”

“You don’t have to spend money on me. I’m doing alright just reading what you have.”

“Yeah, but I got the money to spare. It’ll be fine.” Spike kept quiet about it, but he did slightly fear that getting too much would trigger another catastrophic greed growth. So, he distracted himself by asking the one question he’d had.

“How did you meet your family?” Kipkirui hummed a question, and he elaborated. “Your aunt and uncle and cousins. Didn’t you say you grew up alone?”

“I did. It was… I want to say a year ago now. I got bored, and I went looking. Turns out my dad passed before my mom had me, and my mom had gone out on her own a long while ago after she and my grandma got into it over her going to school. Mom disappeared when I was around four, so I started doing my own thing. Twelve years later, I started thinking about mom, went looking. Turns out they both had a sibling each. Found my uncle on my mom’s side, learned who my mom had married, and found my dad’s side of the family.” Just thinking about it made Spike feel kind of bad for the Satyr. He didn’t know who his dragon family was, for all he knew he was an abandoned egg, but he had had Twilight, Shining Armor, her parents, even Celestia to a degree. Only having a family once you were basically all grown up, and when you’ve been taking care of yourself for so long, the thought was making Spike’s head spin. “They’re all pretty great. Until I told them I was doing alright for myself they nearly got into a fight over who would take me in. I…” For the first time since Spike had known him, Kipkirui looked sad. “I wish I had met them earlier. I did alright on my own sure, but I think I might’ve done better with people around other than this one pony merchant who used to give me free bread every day.”

“I’m really sorry.” Kipkirui sighed, and blinked before suddenly changing directions.

“We’re on the wrong floor. The magic shop’s a floor up.” He didn’t acknowledge Spike’s apology, and Spike sort of understood why. He just didn’t want to think about it anymore.

As they stepped on the crystal platform at the center of the town, Kipkirui grabbed a hold of Spike’s hand.

“It’s easier this way. That way I don’t have to tell you what to press, and you don’t have to climb up to hit the buttons.” There was a central podium on the platform, and it projected a screen of magic similar to the Pictolith back at Kipkirui’s house. He couldn’t see what was on it, he was quite a bit too short. At around half of Kipkirui’s height, spines included, he was far below the eye level of the screen, which was around Kipkirui’s chest height. “Heads up, you should probably try to not look around while this happens.” Kipkirui said. He could tell that Kipkirui was pressing something on it, when the world sort of swirled. Like if you started turning and from the ground up, it stopped turning, making the whole space look twisted. Then, suddenly it bounced back to normal, and Spike felt very, very nauseous. He fell to the ground, fighting back heaves while Kipkirui sank down, patting him on the back reassuringly. When he finally stopped feeling like he was immediately going to throw up if he opened his mouth, he had one thing and one thing only to say.

“I hated every part of that.” Kipkirui nodded, looking remorseful. In his defense, he had warned Spike, but Spike still scowled at him slightly.

“It’s not fun the first time. If you’re like me, you adjust pretty quickly and by the third time it doesn’t phase you anymore.” Spike raised an eyebrow at him.

“And if you aren’t?”

“I am so sorry.” Spike stood up, his nausea finally subsiding. The shop they stood in front of didn’t particularly fit in with the rest of the town aesthetic, being all cold stone masonry and dark colors compared to the warm woods and vibrant colors. Kipkirui huffed out his nose as he stared at the door, displeasure evident on his face as his lip curled and eyes narrowed. Finally he sighed and closed his eyes.

“Let’s go deal with some jerks.”

---

Spike had never felt such animosity in his entire life.

This anger was so foreign to his mind that it almost felt as if someone else’s emotions had been implanted directly into his brain.

Not even Owlicious had made him this mad.

“I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone that much in my life.” Kipkirui groaned.

“Tell me about it. I hate bragging, I try to be pretty humble, but that guy who runs the counter has the audacity to call himself a better spellcaster than me. Me! Oh sure, I invented a literally revolutionary crystal growing technique at thirteen that is the only reason this place is so full of amethyst that we could fully stock an elder dragon’s hoard by shaving ONE of the walls, but yeah, you’re the better spell caster because you learned a flight spell, which is literally just modified basic levitation, but on yourself.” Kipkirui hadn’t told him about that one, but he didn’t have it in him to think about it. He was completely and solely angry. “Let’s go to the bookstore. It’s nice, calm, and the people there don’t make me want to charge somebody.” The anger vanished, and was replaced by vertigo and fear.

“Please don’t tell me we have to go on the weird elevator thing again.” Spike couldn’t see Kipkirui’s face over the massive bag of stuff, that Kipkirui hadn’t let him see the contents of, but he assumed it was one of remorse.

“...Sorry.”

Spike ended up on the floor again. He recovered quicker, but he still was not looking forward to having to go back down to the main floor.

The bookshop was nice though.

It was run by an elderly old Satyr, with a sheeplike visage, and four-horns, who greeted them kindly upon their entrance. While Kipkirui stopped to inquire about a few things in particular, he asked Spike to pick out five to ten things he wanted and he could get them. Spike mentally blanked at that, finding that ten might be a few too little. He wasn’t as intense a reader as Twilight, or Kipkirui for that matter, but he was still prone to spending hours reading if he was interested. That said, he did go looking, and while he found a few Satyr-made comic books, he only picked up three of those, not wanting most of his ten to be picture books. He wandered around, looking through different sections for topics he already had an interest in, like geology, or magical chemistry. He found two of each, his favorite of which was Rare Gems and How To Prepare Them, written by a dragon named Skulk, who despite the intimidating name, was pictured on the interior of the book jacket as a heavy-set, friendly looking dragon of his mid-forties. Okay, that’s seven.

Unfortunately, after that, he wasn’t able to find much else he would’ve been interested in, or that he didn’t find the price too egregious to ask for. He preferred hardbacks, and those ran high. He was going to just ask for the seven that he had, when something caught his eye. A remarkably thick book, entitled Legends of Old Deities, Heroes, and Monsters.

Sold.

He carried the eight books back to the front desk, where Kipkirui had grabbed a few of his own.

“Found anything good?” Spike nodded, and struggled to place the stack on the counter to be paid for. Kipkirui shelled out the cash, pieces of silver cut in different shapes, presumably for different amounts, like it was nothing, but he did ask Spike to carry the books, as he had his hands full with his bag.

---

They arrived home around mid-day, and while Spike decided to sit on the couch to read, Kipkirui was hard at work with feverence, setting up some sort of globe on his desk, while he wrote things down. Spike would’ve been inclined to help, but the book he was reading was much too enthralling for his own good.

It went into ridiculous detail on such a ridiculously high quantity of deities that Spike struggled to process them all, until he got to one in particular. After passing the sections on primordials and titans, the book moved into gods, the most recent era of deities as it claimed. And there, the first one listed, was a dragon. Jupiter, the Lord of the Skies and God of Lightning. Shown with incredible wings, and a javelin of pure electricity, distinguished by his electric blue and yellow scales, and glowing blue eyes. He was listed as the King of The Gods, whose might, along with his brothers Poseiden and Hades, had insured the reign of the gods following the death of their father Kronos.

He was incredible.

The list of his successes and failures was possibly the longest he’d seen so far, but he’d mostly been enthused in the tales and history of the god, because it was positively enthralling how someone could be so good and so bad.

He was flawed, but overall still a relatively decent leader, aside from his tendency to have mortal children to solve his problems.

He was utterly entranced.

Author's Note:

To those of you that read the original, I think you know where this about to go.

Next chapter is more Twilight.

This was stupidly hard to write for some reason, and I hated it, which is why this took so long. If it's bad, I apologize.

Comments

[Zolrak Osdidar]

Authors note response: Nah its good, sorry you hated making this.

This chapter got me excited. I read the original so i know what to come.

[Pete100]

The town was incredible. It was jaw-droppingly huge, and while Spike had had expectations based on the size of Kipkirui’s house, this literally exceeded every single one. Aside from the sheer size of the interior, it was designed so intricately, and yet so naturally that it looked as if it could’ve grown that way. The interior walls were composed of titanic, jutting shards of amethyst glittery and free of imperfections, but deliberately rounded out so as to not have any chance of cutting someone. There were ring-shaped floors far below the entrance floor, and floors far above it, all of which had multiple bridges leading into the center area, sort of like a wheel, where intricately carved crystal platforms seemed to be teleporting people to different stores and floors. The exterior edge was lined with a few shops and other buildings built into the walls, but the bridges and the interior edge of the ring-shaped main platforms were lined with residential houses, which he began to realize were deliberately built on crystal platforms so you could look into the space above. The entrance floor lacked the residential buildings, having only the crystal platforms. He was in a perpetual state of awe as his eyes caught more and more details, and he only snapped out of it when he saw Kipkirui staring at him.

And this is in the forest?

“I’m really sorry.” Kipkirui sighed, and blinked before suddenly changing directions.

“We’re on the wrong floor. The magic shop’s a floor up.” He didn’t acknowledge Spike’s apology, and Spike sort of understood why. He just didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Why?

There was a central podium on the platform, and it projected a screen of magic similar to the Pictolith back at Kipkirui’s house. He couldn’t see what was on it, he was quite a bit too short. At around half of Kipkirui’s height, spines included, he was far below the eye level of the screen, which was around Kipkirui’s chest height.

His spines add to his height?

“Heads up, you should probably try to not look around while this happens.” Kipkirui said. He could tell that Kipkirui was pressing something on it, when the world sort of swirled. Like if you started turning and from the ground up, it stopped turning, making the whole space look twisted. Then, suddenly it bounced back to normal, and Spike felt very, very nauseous. He fell to the ground, fighting back heaves while Kipkirui sank down, patting him on the back reassuringly. When he finally stopped feeling like he was immediately going to throw up if he opened his mouth, he had one thing and one thing only to say.

What just happened?

“I hated every part of that.” Kipkirui nodded, looking remorseful. In his defense, he had warned Spike, but Spike still scowled at him slightly.

You live and learn.

Unfortunately, after that, he wasn’t able to find much else he would’ve been interested in, or that he didn’t find the price too egregious to ask for. He preferred hardbacks, and those ran high.

What are hardbacks?

Unfortunately, after that, he wasn’t able to find much else he would’ve been interested in, or that he didn’t find the price too egregious to ask for. He preferred hardbacks, and those ran high. He was going to just ask for the seven that he had, when something caught his eye. A remarkably thick book, entitled Legends of Old Deities, Heroes, and Monsters .

Is that gonna be important?

[Razzy]

I think I prefer Mass Effect elevators.

'elderly old Satyr' - he's so old it needed to be said twice

[KingReptarAlmighty]

10863923
Precisely. It's like part 3 Joseph Joestar vs. Part 4 Joseph Joestar. One is 60 someodd years old and buff, one is 79 and going senile. This old fellow is closer to the second one.