The Pova continent is a cruel place. It is the continent of dragons and according to their culture only the powerful are allowed to live. The continent is united under the kingdom of Arok, named after the first dragon king.
Young dragons are therefore guarded by their parents until they reach the age of 100. On the day they turn 100, they will either receive a humanoid form and be sent to the Leofric Academy where they will grow strong enough to protect themselves or they will not receive a human form and be sent to fight in the Arena.
The Arena is a place know throughout the world of Relk, but few of the other races have ever seen it. It is a massive coliseum carved into a top of a long dead volcano, big enough to hold thousands of dragons. The Arena can be found to the south of Iknon, a place the other races of the world know little about as they are rarely allowed on Pova.
There are two types of dragons, the imperial dragons, and the regular dragons. The imperials are dragons receive a human form on the 100th birthday and the regular dragon stay as they are. Thousands of years ago the dragons lived in peace, with the imperial dragons ruling over the regular dragons but then there was a war.
The regular dragons started to rebel because they no longer wanted to be the working class. The war lasted 250 years with great losses on both sides. The imperial dragons won however and the king at the time decreed that the Arena be built.
They captured all the remaining regular dragons and forced them to fight each other for entertainment.
Dragons can only lay an egg once every 100 years. Only one egg will be laid. The egg of a regular dragons will always contain a regular dragon and the egg of an imperial dragon has a 10% chance of being a regular dragon, in this case they will be sent to the Arena.
The dragons kept in the arena were rarely forced to fight to the death as there was a limited number of dragons. The females however were forced to get pregnant and lay an egg every 100 years to create new entertainment for the imperial dragons as watching the same dragons fight over and over can become boring and the fights predictable.
If the number of regular dragons in the arena reach 200, the two most powerful dragons are forced to fight to the death. This ensures that they regular dragons do not become too powerful as dragons gain power with age.
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Captain Rulak of the guard was enjoying a leisurely flight along the east coast of Pova. He was a large green imperial dragon that was 467 years old. He joined the army just after he graduated from Leofric Academy at the age of 150.
Rulak was patrolling the eastern border to ensure none of the other races were trying to sneak onto Pova. The mere idea however was ludicrous. Without an invitation to Arok any of the other races were seen as invaders or thieves and killed on site.
This was not always the case but some of the other races started sneaking onto Pova to steal the treasures of the dragons. They were mostly humans. Dragons amassed vast amounts of wealth and treasures during their long lives and when the humans found out they became incredibly greedy.
The demons that lived on Itra weren’t really interested as they placed more value on power than wealth. The Elves that lived on Caelestis were mildly interested and asked if they could trade with the dragons for some of their treasures. They were promptly denied but did not retaliate as they knew they were no match for the combined might of the dragons and placed more value on nature than gold and treasures.
The human that lived on Isvet however, were incredibly greedy and often sent expeditions to try and steel from the dragons. They rarely succeed but continue to try till this day.
And so, Captain Rulak was patrolling the eastern border. Human rarely come from the east as they are much closer to the west, but one can never be too careful with them.
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As Rulak was flying along the cast cliffs along the coat he notices something peculiar. A dragon egg.
Dragon eggs were fiercely guarded by their parents until they hatched as they were so rare. But there, right on the edge of the cliff lay a snow-white dragon egg with a slightly gold tint, as though dusted in gold.
Rulak landed a small distance away as not to disturb the egg the lay precariously on the cliff edge and shifted into his humanoid form.
In his humanoid form Rulak had piercing green eyes with slits and short green hair. He was a tall muscular man appearing to be in his mid-twenties with sharp pointed ears.
Slowly he approached the egg, before picking it up gently. Moving further away from the cliff Rulak once again transformed a dragon and gently held the egg between his sharp claws.
He flew as fast as he dared to the eastern outpost to find someone else to take over his duty of patrolling before heading to Iknon, the capital, with the egg. For surely there was a female dragon distraught over the loss of her egg.
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Rulak had great power over the wind and so was considered one of the fastest fliers in the kingdom of Arok, so he could usually reach Iknon within a week if he pushed himself. But with the egg he dared not fly too fast and it took the better part of a month with stops every evening to rest and ensure the egg was fine.
On arriving in the capital, Rulak immediately reported the egg, thinking that some distraught dragon would soon come to collect it.
He waited a month, and no one came. In disbelieve Rulak contacted his commander and asked him what he should do.
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Commander Darlac was an old red dragon, not the oldest, but still an impressive age of 1198. He was the brother to the current king of dragons.
Upon hearing about this lost dragon egg, he was slightly surprised as no mother would ever lose an egg, at least not willingly, they would die first.
He was alerted a month ago when the young captain Rulak first arrived with the mysterious egg. Thinking that the egg would soon be claimed he forgot about it.
But upon hearing from Rulak that the egg had still not been claimed after a month he was mystified.
So, Commander Darlac went to go see the egg for himself.
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Iknon, was a very strange city. It was in the middle of an enormous mountain range with mountain reaching thousands of meters high. The mountain around the city itself were dotted with caves where many dragons could be seen flying in and out. The strange part however was the valley below these towering peaks. There was a regular city. All the buildings were human sized.
This was because imperial dragons usually had two homes in the capital. One of the caves in the mountains where they relaxed in their dragon forms and kept their hordes and a home down in the valley below. It was easier to socialised when in their humanoid forms as it was hard to find places where hundreds of dragons can easily communicate in their dragon forms. There was also shops down in the valley that sold products from Caelestis and Isvet like amours and clothes for when they visited the other continents or Leofric Academy. They usually did this in their humanoid forms to remain inconspicuous and their dragon forms were often too large to move around in comfortably when visiting the other continents.
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Commander Darlac found Captain Rulak in his home in the valley. Changing into his humanoid form, which looked similar to Rulak, except he had red eyes and red hair, Darlac knocked of the door.
Rulak soon came to open the door and quickly let the commander in.
“Thank you for coming Commander Darlac. I don’t know what to do with the egg. No one has come to claim it and I have duties to attend to on the eastern border. I can no longer look after it. As you know an egg will hatch within a year and this one looks close to hatching. I just don’t have the time to look after a newly hatched dragon.”
“Let me see this mysterious egg, and I will decide what to do,” replied the commander.
Rulak led Commander Darlac deeper into his home into one of the bedrooms. On the bed lay the egg nestled between soft cushions.
Darlac was puzzled, He had never seen an egg with this particular colouring. The colour of an egg usually indicates the colour of the dragon and whilst there are white dragons, the golden tint of the egg was unusual. Nevertheless, Darlac had made up his mind on what to do with the egg. If no imperial dragon wished to lay claim to it, there was only one course of action left.
“Send it to the Arena, I’m sure they’ll have a use for it, and it’s been a while since they’ve had a death match, with a new dragon, they are sure to host another one,” said commander Darlac with a tone of excitement in his voice. The death matches were big events that thousands of the imperial dragons attended.
There were usually only between one to six death matches every year depending on how many eggs were laid in the Arena itself and how many dragons did not transform on their 100th birthday.