To try and classify the dragon is to try and categorize the Divine. We have spent entire millennia trying to do the latter and how far from the starting line have we moved? The only concrete we can actually decide on is One Divine, One Demesne. And that was known almost immediately. We are not going to start and wage a war on ignorance about dragonkind when dragonkind has been effectively removed from Arda. I am wholly against it and I will use my vote always to say no. The White Pantheon simply does not have the resources, the manpower, the time or the luxury to try and study the beasts once after the Day of Dragonfall.
Ultimately, we can ponder the effects of Dragonfall. We can tell ourselves it was terrible. We can pretend to weep. Yet if any of us knew in advance, none of us spoke up and if any of us would say they would go back in time to change what happened during that day, they are either a liar trying to secure moral high-ground or a traitor to the White Pantheon. That is all that there is to be said on the matter of Dragonfall in itself.
The dragons themselves need not be described for all know what a dragon is physically and materially, and yet none know what a dragon is spiritually. During the Age of Heroes, Neneria did confirm the existence of such a thing as a dragon soul, so we can be certain now that they are not some biological weapon, yet there is a reason I have likened them to Divine.
Very simply, a dragon beggars belief in how or why it exists. We know that they talk of the mythical first serpent, which gave rise to all with scale and cold blood, yet that is all we know of their creation. We know they are intelligent to the point that if they try, they are capable of speech, and yet they simply choose not to speak to us. We know they breath fire, yet once slain and cut open, there is no flammable gas within them, nor is any part of their body particularly incendiary. We know they fly, for we have all seen them fly, and we know they use wings to lift themselves and to hover, yet there is no such way a being so heavy should fly. The closest is air-cavalry equivalent, and we know that Pegasi have a minor, instinctual control over the air.
Elassa’s Innate Magic Theory fits dragonkind the most. They must some kind of magic that is their own, and they must be able to channel it instinctually in the same way that Divines do not need to learn how to channel their powers, yet they still need to train them.
Yet nevertheless, what will working out the origins of such beasts give us? Even before the Day of Dragonfall, we did defeat them in battle, they were mighty, but they were not unstoppable. If they return, we will simply fight them again and return to the status quo of the Age of Heroes where dragons were troublesome beasts, but little more than that. They are reliant on Arascus and the Dragonrider Sects to actually pose a threat in the grand scheme of things.
- Goddess Maisara, of Order’s, argument against the Olympadian Dragon Research Committee which was going to be headed by Goddess Allasaria, of Light. Allasaria was outvoted, and the Committee was never created.
Arascus walked across a grand bridge of Klavdiv, although to use grandiosity or size as an identifier in Klavdiv was redundant. The entire city was grand. Nevertheless, there was not much to gaze up here. Towards his left were the lines of glowstone which traced the edges of buildings and statues in some attempt to differentiate them from the ocean of darkness that had wholly swallowed the entirety of Klavdiv.
Arascus had left Iniri behind, he had left Osonev, he had left his escorts. He had left them all as he followed the Dragonkeeper Imitrov. The dwarves had donned a cloak that was patterned with the head of a one of the great creatures his title said he kept. That pattern, the edges of the shawl, his gloves and his helmet were adorned with glowstones to reveal the dwarf. Without those glowstones stitched onto his body, the half-man would melt into the darkness just as everything else did in the lightless Underkingdom.
So Arascus followed Dragonkeeper Imitrov without saying a word. He had done everything there was to do at this point. Iniri was helping with the assistance of a temporary train station into Klavdiv, which would be connected to the railways that were being built. Kassandora had sent word that she had secured Hold Kuya and was going to be advancing since these armies in these tunnels could not be encircled and had very little chance of actually overextending. Neneria herself had gone radio silent, but the unit she was attached to was sending sparser and sparser reports about how far they had pushed into Tartarian lines with the endless torrent of ghosts which answered the Goddess of Death’s command. It was not that they were in any danger, it was that Neneria was moving so quickly the supply lines and the engineers laying telephone lines simply could not keep up. Anassa was defending six Holds at the same time. The Imperial Military was defending another twenty. The front had stabilized.
Up above, Helenna had stolen Olonia’s attention and now a contingency government in Lubska ensured that supplies were being fed into the Underkingdom. And where Lubska gave the food goods needed for sustenance of life, Doschia provided the materials needed to bring modernity into the backwards Underkingdom. Whole sections of Highway were now lit up by modern lights powered by electricity. There were even shelters being excavated which would serve as warm-rooms for the occupants. What now lay in store for the Underkingdom was waiting.
It would be waiting for the Imperial Bureaus tasked with spearheading the modernization of dwarven civilization to complete their jobs. It would be waiting for Kassandora to lead the armies in the south down to the wherever the gap made by Continent Cracking was made. It would be waiting for a way of closing that gap to be devised. And it would be waiting for the World Core to be re-opened.
On that last note, Arascus had already sent men to collect samples of the noxious water at the very bottom of Klavdiv. Some would be tested here to give the general idea of what was happening, others would be sent back to laboratories on the surface. It was all done. The only thing to happen now would be to head back to the surface to make sure that all the supplies heading into the underground would not cause any unrest. That sort of thing required a more personal touch.
Yet that was not true. There was still one thing that was left to do. It would not serve any objective, nor would it advance any cause, but Arascus simply needed to see it.
Arascus looked ahead at the buildings lit up by glowstone. It was the same as if he looked up at stars in the night sky, yet these stars would glow orange and form constellations of straight lines as they outlined the shapes of buildings and filled in tight angles. Imitrov led… Arascus looked up, his eyes going wide. Grand was a redundant adjective in Klavdiv, yet the constellation he gazed up at was grand indeed. It was not of any pattern in particular, it was simply row upon row of tiny glowstones affixed to wall, far enough that their light never conglomerated into an overpowering wall of shine, yet close enough that they were all obviously of the same shape.
Finally, Dragonkeeper Imitrov spoke. “It is here, as you requested.”
Arascus came to a stop and took a deep breath. “How many?”
“Klavdiv has four hundred and twenty-one.”
“And are they alive still?”
“Four hundred and thirty-nine if we include the dead.” Arascus almost did not want to enter the massive structure. He did not know what it was. The dwarven perpetual genocide was one thing. But ultimately, the dwarves had allied themselves to Arascus. He may have had a silver tongue, but ultimately, it had been the decision of the dwarves to join the Empire.
“And you’ve tried everything?” Arascus asked.
“Everything.” Dragonkeeper Imitrov said. “As much as the Dragonwake Project discovered, not a single piece of it was useful for actually waking the Dragons.”
Arascus sighed. “Lead on then.” He said. No, these beasts were nothing like the dwarves. The reason that they had joined the Empire was because Arascus had crushed them so long ago that they had never recovered. The dwarves seeking alliance with the Empire was a matter of exploiting a chance. The dragons seeking alliance was a matter of a species that had once ruled the world seeing themselves be made into little more than animals that had be corralled into their reserves.
Arascus had failed both and he had come to make both right.
The God of Pride followed Dragonkeeper Imitrov, or rather he followed the glowstone that illuminated the dwarf through a grand archway. It was cold here, although it was cold everywhere. Inside the great hall, the sky of stars fashioned out of glowstone became conglomerated balls that cast a dim light. Dwarves worked here, civilians, in clothes of cloth. Their breathes misted into the cold air. They dragged water and they filed claw and they took notes.
Notes on dragons. Dragonkeeper Imitrov kept on walking, then came to a stop when he realised that the God of Pride had not moved from the archway. Dragons huge and dragons small lay here, some with teeth that spilled out of their mouths, others with claws as pale as marble or as dull as rotten cream. With scales cracked and scales shattered and scales healthy. All with awesome wings that lay spread out by their sides. And tails that were simple long limbs or they had spikes or clubs. Yet no matter how they looked, there was no doubt.
Arascus was staring at Dragons. And Dragons that he knew personally. Dragons he had thought in the Great War with and Dragons he had signed the Concordats with. Azathor and Kanta and Iltian and… Arascus stopped at stared. His eyes passed through one beast to the other. They were different in size of course, and no dragon possessed scales the exact same shade as another, and yet… Arascus took a deep breath. Four hundred and twenty-one still alive in Klavdiv, more throughout the Empire. And not one that had been awoken.
Arascus walked up to the closest dragon. He would inspect them all of course. It was his duty to drag the dwarves out of their borderline-extinction and it was his duty to drag the dragons out of the their all-but-physical extinction. Arascus looked over the grand beast with scale tougher than stone. The dragon’s claws were the size of a human. His maw was large enough to swallow Arascus whole. And just like all of them here, Arascus knew this one too. It was Staentis, assigned to support the Warherds in the Sassara. He had killed Divines, he had slaughtered armies. He had razed towns. And now, he lay here, asleep. Arascus reached forward and… for once in his life, the God of Pride actually stopped. “They can be touched?” Arascus asked.
“Go ahead.” Imitrov answered.
Arascus silently put his large hand on Staentis’ chest. His palm enveloped one whole scale on the beast’s chest. He held it there for a moment, not even willing to risk a breath in case the sound of the air would drown out the sound of what he was listening for. It came after two seconds, then again, ten seconds later. And again, the same time apart. There was no need to be careful. It was terribly loud, and each time he heard it, he felt his arm warm up for a mere instant before the temperature once again cooled.
Arascus stood there, eyes closed, as he listened to the slumbering dragon’s heartbeat.
Soon…