“Alright, let’s focus on what I know, first. Sam, do you remember the ritual at all?” Volkir asks, and Angela can feel the thoughts of Samarina running across her mind. This was different than before, she normally couldn’t see that stream of consciousness. She kept silent, for the time being.

Samarina nodded slowly and glanced at Volkir. “I do. There were specific instructions. I remember why I was there. I failed my wards. I rationalized, that…going someplace else, was the right thing to do. It was not a popular choice among my fellow Valkyries, who insisted that I should stay. But, I did not.”

“Okay. Your recollection might be the first of reliable records, then. I know for a fact that they used large formations of mana crystals–”

“They used an unfathomable amount of mana crystals. They formed a gate. A tri-point hoop. The dragons all gathered, all walks of life. Clans, families, former enemies. We all stood as equals. There were no witnesses to this event, because this was to ensure we were not followed…and to let our legacy not stain the records of human history. Or so we were told,” she added with a vein of anger.

Amaranth and Volkir are busily scribing notes while Samarina continues slowly. Angela could feel her thoughts as readily as they emanated from the projection. “I remember we gathered the crystals onto an expanded teleportal field. Not unlike young Mister Bertance’s harebrained attempt to teleport the denizens of Asqualia to safety not that long ago.” Kyle nods solemnly at this mention before Sam continues. “We gathered the crystals into a pyre at the center of the platform. It stretched for hundreds of meters, an expanded field of effect, unlike anything the world had seen since the old astral gates were demolished. A transport between worlds. We were attempting to travel to one world we thought, from the old records, might be safe. The ancient world of Remaria.”

“What’s this world? I’ve never heard of it,” Levine interjected, but Volkir put up a hand to speak.

“It was an old world we lost contact with. We are not sure what happened, but, a small colony of dragons was there. It was a world completely unlike our own, let’s just say. Very few records exist of what exactly the world was like, but it was hollow. A nested world.” Angela blinked in surprise–after all the stuff they’d been through, hollow worlds were one that genuinely caught her off guard. “But, why would they go there?”

Samarina shakes her head. “I do not know, but I know the decision was reached by the senior dragons , those leading these efforts. I stood there, alone, having watched my wards die, torn apart by that monster who seemed to disappear off the face of the earth, after Crosomer’s armies capitulated. The crystals were joined in the center, and we stood there, wingtip to wingtip, and told to channel our mana into the teleportal platform, and to not lose focus.” She bowed her head. “I did as I was instructed. I wanted to escape the heartache of what had happened. I would have done anything to try to stave off that clench of pain in my soul that time had not healed.”

Angela could see it. Not in the sense of seeing it with her vision, but in her mind, when she blinked. She looked around and saw silver scales covering her body, in her dragon form. But, it was Samarina’s words she heard echoing as she looked around.

A crystalline spire. Spanning to the heavens, morphing and growing in size as more crystals were laid at the foundation, and several dragons checked on it as the crystals merged. They formed into a series of three towers, arching toward the heavens, and meeting at a single tri-tip, like a dragon’s claw. The air was chilly in the mountain valley they were in, and she saw thousands of dragons, all around her. All around. Below her lay the rune traces of the expanded teleportal pad. She glanced to her right, and a family of Nevarran reds were there. Two smaller drakes clung to their mother, who gave them an assuring stroke along their feathered manes.

The air was still, and the voices of so many dragons were unnaturally muted. Angela could feel in her heart–in Samarina’s heart–that this was it. This was the end of one life, and the start of another, in a faraway world, unburdened with the grief of a mage war that had wracked the war, and the ruins of a dragon civilization that had barely clung together. All she could feel was not a sense of relief, but of grief. Of a failure that time could not heal.

Samarina’s words continued even as she looked at this wooded vale, and the somber mood built. The dragons at the center drew runes, and traced mana through the air in simple patterns. Angela looked at the very center, aligned just under the tri-tip point–and gasped.

The Kilnstar'noth was sitting in the middle, with its alien runes being manipulated by a gold-scaled dragon, with blue eyes and black and teal feather accents. It looked almost like…

Julia?!

But, that, was impossible. Julia wasn’t born seven hundred years ago. Before she could focus on it, she heard a voice call out–a voice from a plain woman with brown hair, tall stature, in ceremonial robes by the platform. The only human there. She peered around with piercing blue eyes, at the thousands of dragon-kin in this vale–herself included.

“I bid you farewell, dragon-kin. I wish this departure were under better circumstances. I wish you did not have to leave under such conditions. The world will mourn your loss. Let me bear witness.” The woman regarded this assembly of the greatest creatures of the world, and Angela noticed something off.

She was smiling. The mood did not match the words. Who was this woman with the high cheekbones, and the look of old-world nobility? Why did no one seem to think something was off? The woman continued to speak and tapped the device gently, and put one last rune into position. “Remember: you will need to channel all your mana into this effort. It will take everything you are, but you shall be triumphant in your efforts. The ancient retreat of Remaria is waiting for you. Godspeed, children of Gaia. We shall tend to this world in your stead.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Angela tries to call out. Something is not right. There is something vile about this woman that she can feel in her heart, but no one else seems to notice. She walks to a small group of three other people–too distant to make out, at the far end of the clearing, where a one-time teleportal is set up. She doesn’t know who that woman is, but she must know, what is about to happen, and what is about to go horribly wrong by design. But her body doesn’t react. Her body isn’t her own, it’s Samarina’s, and this is a playback that even she, too, seems to be reliving.

The device in the center of the field hums, and her body reacts with mana arcing off her scales, as it does for the dragon species of all sorts around her. They take a stance on their clawed feet in unison–allies, lovers, friends, families. They join together, wingtip to wingtip, some hugging their loved ones in anticipation of their exodus off of the world, and the machine spins and splits. A globule of pure white and black appears–scintillating, warping her perception of reality. It hurts to even look at that incomprehensible globule like it’s an unreality. Something not meant to be observed by any mortal mind.

She staggers her stance while locking eyes with that woman with the ice-cold gaze. She smiles, before disappearing in a flash from the disposable teleportal. She also saw a flash of someone else, briefly…someone with bright red hair.

Her heart freezes in recognition.

Val was here. At this event. Seven hundred years ago.

Angela screams but her mouth doesn’t move. They’ve been tricked. This plan was that infernal woman’s design, all along. She wanted the dragons gone, or to harvest their power. But there is no time for warnings. There is no time to undo the past.

This already happened.

Energy arcs from the massive crystalline spires, energizing that unreality void, and it strengthens. The Kilnstar'noth, that ancient machine built by people older than the dragons, unfolds and builds the brass plates fly out, forming panels that the energy arcs too, floating in mid-air. A breeze has built to a gale, and her heart is like a jackhammer in her chest. She tries to warn them. Sam tries to warn them.

Energy arcs across her body, stinging, searing, jolting her very existence. Her instinct is to bow with the pain, staggered on the ground, as many others do as well. She looks up at that scintillating sphere, feeling her very existence being pulled toward it. She knows the foregone conclusion: Samarina dies here, along with countless thousands, tricked by two people playing games with people’s lives.

That pain becomes agony as mana arcs across her body, and she sees bits of her existence becoming that energy. She feels like her scales are peeling apart, the core of her existence exploding into pain. She gives one last fleeting glance to the family of dragons next to her huddling in one last embrace, gleaming red scales melting to flesh, bone, and dust. Her own existence feels like it flies apart–

“Angela, snap out of it!”

She gasps and is out of breath, with Julia shaking her shoulder, looking worried. “Angela, are you okay?!” she asks in an elevated tone. She’s on the ground, feeling a throbbing feeling in her back from where she landed, and her eyes dart to everyone gathered around her. “Angela, you started screaming. What happened?”

“I–I…I saw it. I saw the moment they died.” She clung to Julia with all her might, mana tracing just below her skin. “Thousands of them, rendered to dust. The Kilnstar'noth was there. The scintillating sphere, the hole to the aether. It was awful, Julia."

She hasn’t cried in a long time, but now, she can’t stop, and shudders uncontrollably. “They were all there, oblivious. Sam knew something was wrong, she could feel it. She tried to warn them.”

“I…I tried…it was too late. The device that your sage, splitting off my essence seems to have knocked loose a…powerful memory.” Angela turns to her right to see Samarina, looking mournful. “I did not think it would impact you so badly.”

“Okay, deep breath, Angela. You’re okay,” Julia whispered, while the rest of them gave the two of them space. “Just breathe, okay?”

“Val was there.” Those are the most important words that she needs to get out, and the room is instantly set alight with this shocking revelation. “I saw her, bright red hair, only a glimpse, but she was there. Or someone that looked just like her.”

“Val was there?! How? She was numero uno on everyone’s hit list!” Drenar exclaimed. “Including mine, but hey, it doesn’t count as murder if they plan on killing you first.”

“Drenar…someone else was there.” She is still hugging Julia awkwardly tight. “I would have sworn she looked like your mom, but, no. It was someone else, piercing blue eyes, brown hair, regal, tall. She was the only human there, besides Val, and someone else I couldn’t get a glimpse of.”

“Amaranth, did you get all–” Volkir starts to say.

“Yeah, yeah, I was recording all of that. Fates. Is that who I think it is?” Amaranth said while looking startled. Volkir’s face was utterly livid.

“It can’t be. Why would she have been there?”

“She spoke in ancient draconic. Sam’s language,” Angela said, and still felt her body trembling. “She knew what was going to happen, whatever it was, and Sam knew something was wrong. This was planned. They were all doomed to die, and she was at that site, presiding over their future funerals. Before she teleported out.” She finally caught her breath, peering at Volkir intensely. “I thought the device was secured. Why was it in their hands? Why didn’t you say it was there?!”

“I didn’t know, I thought it was under Conclave control, under lock and key…” Volkir trailed off, a look of horror on his face. “That’s what they did. No witnesses, they went site to site, to set up shop, used the device, committed genocide, rinse and repeat. All across the world. The Conclave did, indeed, wipe out the dragons."

“Damn it, stop filling out my bingo card in the worst ways possible,” Drenar groans. Angela wipes the mist from her eyes–this was awful in all the worst ways, and she swears she can feel that searing pain through her existence, still. “Angela, that looked awful. Do you need a few minutes?”

“Um…we might want to start acting with haste,” Volkir stated deadly calm. Everyone turned to look at him. “Because if I’m right, we have big enemies who might know about Rick and Sam.”

“Dude, you’re gonna throw more shit at us? We already are courting death with Val, Davos, and Crosomer,” Julia snaps furiously, after helping Angela to her feet. “Who could be worse?"

“Zacharias Fellwoven.” The way Volkir said it, drove a moment of utter cringe in half the room’s faces, and Angela vaguely recalled the name.

“The who, now?” Drenar asked.

“The head of the Conclave drove the genocide of the dragons,” Volkir explains. Meanwhile, Angela clutches her chest, where that mana shard feels like it is vibrating like a hive of stirred-up hornets, and Drenar wears that infrequently used look of despair he wears when things have gone really badly. He’s not the only one feeling that, either.

“This job sucks in all the worst ways,” Drenar sighs. “Are we sure there isn’t another dark-haired, tall, blue-eyed, nordic-sounding woman out there that isn’t the head of the Conclave?”

“I’m just gonna go preemptively collect my bet now, Drenar, because if this one pans out, I’m not gonna live to collect it later,” James interjects sourly.