The Journey to the Long Dragon Sage

The Journey to the Long Dragon Sage was a year-long expedition across the wastes that secured Holster’s cure from her Human Pillar status. Its resolution was a bargain with an ancient dragon, but the journey’s other price remained largely hidden: Yuan Guang returned from a task he refused to describe, and Holster remembered that silence as evidence of how dangerous the ordeal had been.

The Expedition and Its Destination

The journey lasted a year and crossed the wastes before Yuan Guang, Holster, and their companions found Long, a great and ancient dragon sage whom Arc had visited in the past. Holster’s recollection places the expedition four years before the later events in which she remembers it. The distance and duration give the cure the shape of a hard-won destination rather than an immediate remedy, though the account does not describe the route or its individual stages.

Holster remembered Long as both magnificent and frightening: his golden scales shone brighter than the sun, and horns rose from his head like a crown. He sat atop a throne of treasure and spirit-roots. The grandeur of the setting did not soften the encounter; the dragon’s demand made clear that the visitors had come before a powerful figure who set the terms of aid.

The Bargain and Holster’s Cure

Long agreed to cure Holster of her Human Pillar status in return for Yuan Guang working for him for a full month. The account presents this as the condition attached to the cure, not as a service freely granted. Holster later confirms that Long kept his word and that her Human Pillar status was cured.

The bargain connected Holster’s release from the condition to a burden carried by Yuan Guang. What Long’s work involved is never disclosed: Yuan Guang refused to tell Holster what quest the dragon had sent him on. The text therefore makes the cure’s outcome clear while leaving the labor that secured it deliberately opaque.

The Unspoken Ordeal

Holster judged the assignment by Yuan Guang’s reaction to it. The mere mention of a dragon unsettled him more than any Demigod of Ultraviolence, and he continued to withhold what had happened even years later. Mom offered only that he had been thoroughly tested. These remarks establish the task as harrowing without revealing its events, dangers, or exact purpose.

That withheld account shapes the memory as much as the dragon’s appearance does. Holster had been scared and amazed at the meeting; afterward, the person who had secured her cure carried an experience he would not share. The journey thus ends in a split knowledge: Holster remembers the bargain and its result, but not the trial Yuan Guang endured to fulfill it.

Consequences and Continuing Significance

Long’s promise extended beyond Holster’s cure. He agreed to safeguard the Cube of Natho from threats until Yuan Guang and his allies could find a way to destroy the evil within it. With the Nuke safely contained, Yuan Guang chose to focus on other Demigods of Ultraviolence; the Gun and the Bow had already been put down, while the Blade, the Biohazard, and the Arson remained free.

The expedition therefore left two lasting consequences: Holster was freed from her Human Pillar status, and the dangerous Cube was entrusted to Long while the group pursued other threats. Years later, Holster and her companions were hunting the Truck when they came upon a local slavers’ guild and decided to attack it. The remembered journey belongs to that wider course of action not as a fully recounted adventure, but as the earlier ordeal that cured Holster and secured a guardian for the Cube.