“So, since you guys keep getting distracted, are there any downgrades?” Angela inquires. Julia skips through some sections.

“Nah. Just the system shock of being told you're now from a non-human species. Still can't get over that--how is there even a distinct genetic connection to us? Anyway, there’s a few things that can hurt them–alchemical silver slows or stops their active regeneration, same with a lot of other magical creatures. Apparently it’s some kind of crime to use alchemical silver against sentient beings in this way, and is considered a violation of the Austwick Conventions, as originally proposed by Zacharias Fellwoven. Whoever that is,” Julia mutters.

“Honestly, I keep going back to that system shock. Pretend for a second that you had no warning, no prior knowledge, no awareness of magic, and suddenly you’re sprouting scales and wings. How would you react?" There’s a muted silence in the room.

"Probably not well at all," Angela admits. "It would be mildly jarring at a minimum, or an existential nightmare or worse for most. Did your mom say anything about that fried microwave?”

Julia lets out a shrug. “No. It took every ounce of convincing mom that I managed to kill the thing by sticking a fork inside by accident. I’m not entirely sure I convinced her either.” She's still worried, judging by the way she fiddles with her nail paint.

"According to this, several other benefits include an extremely lengthy increase of life, superior immune system, hyper dense musculature that even in human form, would allow you to perform impressive physical feats--I mean really, who wouldn't want all these things?" It is mildly exciting to him.

“Any chance we can just…opt out?” Everyone stares at Angela, who looks defensive. “Hey, if I could trade it for a vanilla life, I’d like to at least know it’s an option!”

"I don’t think we can opt out, Angela. If this is all true, there was already a part of us that wasn’t wholly human to begin with. That raises a lot of uncomfortable questions, to put it mildly.” Drenar winces and rubs the bridge of his nose after taking off his glasses for a second. "Maybe that's why everyone says I'm talented at martial endeavors. I basically have had cheat mode engaged."

“Anyone can throw a punch, but talents like that do take an amount of self discipline and training, Drenar. It’s not like you and I didn’t train exceptionally hard for our physical aptitude,” Julia reassures him. "Still, if you had to ask for superpowers like being able to turn into an armor scaled dragon with an incredible array of magical and physical abilities, I guess you can't go wrong with that. Might make it a tad too easy with the martial arts though,” she muses with a creased smile and her eyes focus skyward.

Angela chuckles softly at her. “Julia, If you fling every opponent through a wall, or worse, the ceiling, I think people will eventually notice.” She pouts her lip in response. "Even if it is the case...it doesn't have to be the end of the world as we know it. Maybe we just keep it hidden between us. Live out our lives like everyone else, no one would have to know. We could live relatively normal lives. Maybe."

“Yeah, except for one glaring problem. The average life expectancy for a dragon, depending on subspecies, is around four to five thousand years.” Any thought of living a normal life is instantly extinguished in the room, and Julia closes her eyes and grimaces against the notion. “You know what makes human life endearing? We get so much done in so little time, in the grand scheme of the timescale of the universe. I can’t imagine outliving everyone I know, and have thousands of years left on the clock.”

"That is a downer, isn't it? The flip side of long life, I mean, what's the point if friends, family...they can't be there to share the experience of a life well fulfilled. I never really thought about it that way." Drenar’s somber assessment brought a quiet pall to the room. "I mean, what do you even do with a couple thousand years of life expectancy, anyway? We could live long enough to see humanity traverse among the stars."

“Great. Then we’ll have space dragons. This gets wilder the more you talk,” James growls. “Still have to point out the suckage about outliving, you know, everyone.”

"I suspect keeping a rotation of friends, human, dragon, and others probably helps. Ugh. I guess it isn't the worst thing in the world, but still, it's something to dread in the long run." Angela glances around the room, then lets out a slight sigh of relief. "Well, I'd have you guys, at least. That's something."

“I’ll be dust,” James mutters.

“You’ve still got time to find out you're a dragon,” Angela assures him.

“Look, you all might think this is fine and dandy, but it's a curse, in my humble opinion. People are targeting Evan because of what he is--and he did absolutely nothing. You know what else sucks about the whole thing? There was a certain finality to knowing how long we had on the planet." James does sound quite bitter about it, and Drenar concedes he might have a few valid points. "What about draconic history anyway? They must have had an immense magical and technological advance on us, right?”

Julia jumps in for this one. “I haven't dived too far into Ergath's book yet. Dragon culture lost a lot in some kind of civil war about four thousand years ago called the Schism war, and the separatists–those that wanted to keep using humanity as experiment subjects, slaves or food, summoned some kind of demon when it was clear they were losing, and almost wrecked the planet before they could undo the damage. Before that, the draconic civilization had advanced magical technology that would make the impossible seem reality. And all that is now gone. All because of a couple civil wars. Think of what the world could be like if they were still around in a sustained capacity."

“Uh, they kept slaves, Julia. Well, some of them. And from what I read, every other non-human, non-dragon race was created through some twisted magical experiments at their direction,” Drenar cautioned. “We've got tons to unpack eventually.”

“They made the other races? How many are there?” James gasps.

“Quite a few. The book doesn't cover them in detail. But a few names came up. Wargen, Kitsune, elven, fey, dwarves. There might be others,” Julia added.

“Yeah, but, how?”

“Oh, we have no idea. Apparently that part is a little obscured by the fog of history and lack of records,” Drenar admits. “It makes magic as awe inspiring as it could be dangerous, if used wrongly.”

"With our current world leaders? Totally agree. The nuclear armageddon clock is still uncomfortably close to midnight, and magic would do more than nudge that clock,” James said anxiously.

Angela mulls over all of this for a moment and peers down at the bestiary. “Yeah, I see the point. All this history, all these secrets, mothballed for all time because mages thought it was in our best interests to hide something like this. They hid how extraordinary our world really is. It sucks. And now we come into it, scraping and scratching, looking for answers when everyone wants to hide it. And it sounds like the mage world has problems of their own, too. Not a surprise, either.”

“The Talons?” Drenar asked. “That mural? Yeah. The Conclave are not the only people I’m a little apprehensive about. If Nick wasn't playing around, they're not nice people, and already tried once to overthrow the Conclave of the Arcane. My advice? Let's not get on their radar."

“Bro, we already are. If I don't tell Jonaleth that I'm happy to join his merry band of misfit killers, they'll torch our house, and us,” Evan says heatedly. That time bomb still is ticking, but Drenar is pretty sure Jonaleth presents less danger than the Talons and their possible long term plans. Just what have they been up to, and why in this footnote of a town?”

“So wait, before we start kicking over more rocks, we need to discuss contingency time. What do we do if we randomly transform in a populated area? It could happen anytime,” Angela points out.

"Find a secluded area and wait it out. And hope it doesn't attract the wrong kind of attention.” The closest place they could hang out would be the woods behind his house, which ran uninterrupted for miles. There was some logging in the area, but they were on the far end of town, away from relatively prying eyes. “We will have some warning, at least.”

“It’s an okay plan, but what if Nick already knows what we are?”

“How, though?” Drenar ran his fingers through his hair and contemplated the notion for a minute. “I mean, he’s clearly got some leads in town. But outwardly, do we look any different?”

“Eh…I think your eyes got a little more green.” James finds a way to add fuel to the panic fire. Drenar looks at him nervously. “Dude it’s not very noticeable, but when I look at photos of us from a couple months ago, there’s a subtle difference. Actually there's a big difference for you. Like, your eyes are super green." Julia gets closer, and looks at her phone, then back to him.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Holy shit. Your eyes are…they're as green as your mom's. That's super weird! I always thought it was closer to hazel, but nah, they're straight up green.” She pauses, as if another idea has hit her. “Wait. If that's the case…if you were already Awakening with small changes a couple months ago, why'd Alex crop up now?" Julia inquires.

He throws his hands up animatedly. This is just a dumpster fire that can't be extinguished. There are outward signs he's a dragon? "Great. guess I better go find some contact lenses."

"Oh it's not that bad. Same eye color, nothing exotic like purple or red or ochre." He does feel mildly relieved while she flips back through the books. “Well, okay, normal Awakening is drawn out a bit more for half dragons, and when it does start, it's not all in one shot. For drakensouls, it's almost instant once the process starts. something's not adding up. And this whole stranded lands thing! Angie, you didn't see anything like that, did you?”

“Uh a voice, a silver dragon who was as cute as she was deadly, and a great big white void. I remember it was like looking at a vanishing infinity point in every direction. Would have helped if I could have understood her, but she didn't seem hostile. They actually do carry a range of emotion in their face, even though the structure is different.” Angela's art skills, Drenar realized, give her a keen eye for those subtle details.

"That is…interesting. We need far more info than we have resources or people we trust right now. We need to figure out how to get more pieces to this giant non-Euclidian puzzle,” Julia concludes.

“Maybe we do need to talk to Nick. At some point. it's still a risk, but Julia and I sort of have a plan–” Drenar starts to say before Angela interjects.

“Let’s not pull the pin on that grenade just yet. Like, Nick’s alright, he just is…kinda quiet at times,” Angela inputs. “Let’s talk about your borderline crazy and stupid plan for Mount Syren, and why not *all* of us are going on this misadventure. I mean why are we convinced that this is a solid lead exactly?” Julia pulls up some printouts, and lays them out. Drenar starts first.

“Here’s what we've got, along with Julia’s stuff. I swung by town hall to get some history. It was an old silver mine that they updated for new tech, and the company that was there was digging about fifteen years ago. Dave worked there for a couple years as a consultant, funny enough. Guy is a metallurgical genius and never boasts about it," Drenar added in a lower tone.

“Here's hoping he's not part of this whole ordeal–”

“Relax. He left there like ten years ago, well before the shady stuff started. I asked him about it yesterday. He says he kept in touch with them, but even he admits his old coworkers started getting really cagey about four years ago. He did confirm there was an industrial accident, causing the mine to close.”

"Any concrete details?" Angela asks Julia shakes her head.

"Only the media highlights. Three years ago there was some kind of industrial accident. A partial collapse of the mine–It actually took me a little work to find it. The online media reports were a little fuzzy. Now, here's where it gets weird. Some other company called Eridanus Industries got the license two years before that and paid, get this, about twenty million for it. That's a stupidly huge investment.”

"So who are they?"

"It’s a shell company based out of the Bahamas. There's a phone, a PO box, and a voicemail that sounds laughably bad, and a few other records of business. They're in turn held by another company, and also set up in the Cayman islands. And where do you launder money?" Julia leaves the question floating.

“Ireland, Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Cyprus…though I think that not all of it is suspect,” James concedes.

“Nah. There’s something up about this. Why would anyone set up a shell within a shell? The on-the-books revenue of the mine was in the low millions per public record, not billions. They're some kind of tech holding company and a casual search of public records reveals a whole lot of nothing. Krieg, Hayter and Birkin Technology, LLC.” Julia put her laptop image on the TV monitor for display to everyone. "They have some very strange holdings on chemical development, metallurgy and other mining ventures. Those are privately held, no other records. We might just be looking at a real life James Bond Villain Company,"

"Or, just some white collar miser who likes to play shell games with their money," James counters with a huff. "You know, not all criminality is super extravagant. Some corporate sharks just hate paying the tax man.”

"Points for originality, but some of this aligned with Nick's comments. He thinks they found some artifact of ultimate doom or sealed evil in a can, and they hid whatever happened there from prying eyes.” Drenar is wary of that rabbit hole. Magical creatures likely meant other forms of magic. Weapons, armor, artifacts. What is the limit to this?

“What does that have to do with what’s happening to us?” Angela asked quietly.

“Honestly? No idea. It may not even be related. As far as we know, if this Awakening thing is tied to our age, it’s no surprise that it’s happening now. Hell, Julia and I were born a day apart,” Drenar reasoned. He was about to say more, but there’s a call from downstairs.

"Drenar, Evan! We need you downstairs, right now!" Drenar heard a muffled shout from below. He looked to the others, and he and Evan sigh.

“Okay, one second guys. One crisis at a time.” They look downstairs, and saw Diane and Dave packing suitcases with some clothes and their electronics, talking hurriedly between each other.

"No Diane, we have to go! We have to catch the flight now or we'll have to wait until Saturday!" Dave presses, with Diane folding clothes into her bag. "I have the critical stuff, did you grab your charger?”

"In my bag already. Do you have your medications?"

"Already packed." Dave looks up at them, his hair slightly disheveled "Evan, Drenar, something came up. We're headed out right now.

"Wait, what?" Evan is genuinely terrified of the prospect of the parents leaving, now of all times.

"Diane's dad had a heart attack in Vancouver. We're catching the next flight tonight out there. He was lucky, they caught it in time. He's in recovery now, but he’s not in great shape." Dave answers firmly before snapping the bag closed. "We don't know how long we're going to be gone, We might be gone for a week or more. Drenar, you're in charge until we get back."

"Wait, Drenar is in charge? Why aren't we coming, too?"

"I don't want you guys to miss school. We just found out at the last second, and the flight had just two seats left," Diane responds while busily packing Dave's work laptop in a separate bag. "There's plenty of groceries in the fridge, and I'm leaving my credit card with you, Drenar, get what you need and take the car if you have to. But don't go on a spending blitz, alright?" She hands him a credit card–and about two hundred dollars of cash. "No alcohol, no girls, and no parties–James and company excluded. I'm trusting you two not to wreck the place. Oh, and feed the pets, too, twice a day for the cat, once a day for the dog."

"Uh... Scout's honor?" Drenar replies softly, with her smiling faintly.

"Thank you, Drenar." She closes the bag, and hefts it over her shoulder. "If anything dire comes up, call Julia's mom, don't go to anyone else."

"Why Julia's mom?" He has a pretty good idea on why, though. “And should I be preparing for the apocalypse in the meantime?” he asked with a slant of sarcasm.

"Drenar, just...take my word for it? She was your mom's closest friend, and I'd trust her with my life if it ever came down to it," Diane said firmly. She nods to Dave. "Anything else?"

"We'll keep in touch with you guys, so keep your phones on you. We'll be back as soon as we can," he affirms as both of them headed out the door after giving them hugs.

"I think you've just been promoted. Congrats bro," Evan said confidently and gave Drenar a slap on the back.

"No, Evan. Something about this doesn't smell right," he countered. He could hear the car start and the garage door opening, followed by the sound of a departing vehicle. "Since when have Diane and Dave ever left at the drop of a hat? Never. The answer is never. They always take time to pack."

"Dying parents drive anyone to rapid response, Drenar," Evan points out. "I'm surprised they're leaving us here, to be honest. C'mon, let's order a pizza, hang out for a bit. Also, we gotta talk about our suicide mission plan, so can we eat while we're doing it?" Drenar glares at him. That dark haired man-crusher he knows really needs to teach him the technique to be intimidating. "What, man, don't give me that look. You have a habit of stumbling into weird stuff, and this is the top tier of sheer crazy.”

“Way to state the obvious.” Unfortunately under normal circumstances, it would be crazy to even attempt this. “Look, Evan, we have a plan. A plan you’re relegated to the support role, because it could be dangerous!”

“Yeah, nah, I already beat you to the danger zone,” he retorts before gesturing to the fading injuries.

"Guys, where'd the parent units go?" Julia calls from the stair landing. Angela and James are there, too, looking confused.

"Diane's father had a heart attack and they just took off.” Drenar turned to address Evan sternly. "Evan, we need a demonstration." He firmly pushed his glasses up on his slightly crooked nose.

"You mean, that?”

“If we need firepower in the unlikely event, you're the backup. You realize we haven't seen this whole process yet.” Julia nods in concurrence, and Evan lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Alright. But tell anyone who isn't us or in on the Veil, and we're gonna get lobotomized or disappeared permanently." James looks about two shades paler than normal. "Nah seriously, people get pissed when kids like us do dumb things and put videos on Tiktok. The Conclave keeps every major social media company on retainer, and their price for silence is mighty high."

"Is this how Twitter didn't collapse sooner?" James notes with his face held in his hands. "Be gentle with breaking my world, Evan. Drenar has not been gentle.”

It feels like a very odd comment to leave on, Drenar thinks.