Gatekeepers Book 2: Galeforce

Hold up. What?

“What does that mean?” Draycos asked. “How could everyone think dragons are nothing more....” His voice trailed off as he fell deep into thought, trying to find an explanation to what he had just been told. An answer soon came to mind, and he looked up at Theravor with a rather serious expression.

“Do you mess with all the spectators’ memories or something?” It was a hunch, but Draycos felt he was onto something with that guess.

Theravor whistled and slowly clapped his hands. “Wow, you really do have a good head on those shoulders,” he commented. “To answer your question, you’re both right and wrong.”

“Huh?”

“This is going to take a bit of explaining....” Theravor glanced over at Vertex. “Vertex, do you mind giving Draycos a bit of background information? You know the most about history out of the four of us here.”

Vertex bowed. “Very well, if that’s what you want.” He took a step forward and locked eyes with Draycos. “Let’s start back about a thousand or so years ago. I doubt you would have ever guessed this, Draycos, but back then, dragonkind as a whole was on the verge of extinction.”

“What?” Draycos couldn’t believe that so easily. “You’ve got to be kidding me! This better not be some kind of joke again, Poseidon!” He glared at Poseidon with that last comment, and Poseidon looked away and began whistling. He had been in on the joke Zero pulled on Draycos when the two first met. To be honest, Draycos wasn’t the only one who was starting to suspect that Zero’s joke hadn’t been a joke at all, since the jacked dragon continued to play his card during almost all of his encounters with Draycos.

“It’s not a joke.” Draycos looked over to the side to see Damrabe shaking his head, a somber expression on his face. “It really is true; we were almost completely wiped out a millennia ago.”

“Alright, then, what’s the reason for that?”

“Overhunting,” Theravor answered simply in a low tone. All eyes fell on him as he continued to explain. “Draycos, you know now that dragons are exceptionally gifted when it comes to magic compared to other races, right? That gift goes all the way down to our blood and bones. All the races wanted our body parts to enhance their own skills and lifestyles, making tools from our bones and potions from our blood. Even though we’re dragons, we can’t do much if sheer numbers overwhelm us individually.”

“No way....” Draycos couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Then, what changed that a thousand years ago?”

“It was the creation of the ‘Metra Anomaly’,” Vertex answered. He held his right palm up, and a book that appeared out of nowhere fell open on his hand. Parchment crinkled as he flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. “The Metra Anomaly is a powerful magic artifact first created a thousand years ago. The artifact is capable of altering what anyone but dragons can see, and it can also manipulate their memories, to some extent. Using the artifact to this day, dragons have been able to hide in plain sight among the other races and even prosper.”

“How does it work?”

“I told you it manipulates what people see and their memories, correct? The Metra Anomaly sets up a ‘magic field’ so to speak, and as long as it stays up here in the air with us dragons, its effects can reach throughout the world, since the magic field operates like a radiation effect. To all the other races, if they look at us, they would see nothing but ordinary humans or such. Additionally, if we make minor adjustments to the Metra Anomaly, we can tamper with everyone’s memories as we see fit.”

“Ah, I get it.” Draycos was beginning to connect the dots now. “So you had to tweak with the thing a little bit in order to cover up my last fight?”

“Correct,” Theravor responded, nodding his head. “The three of us came here after adjusting it, so nobody but those of us in this room, the rest of dragonkind, and a handful of other beings who know the truth about us remembers exactly what happened at the end of the fight. We made it so that they think you got up after getting slashed by Clyad and headbutted the hell out of him, knocking him out.”

“Really?” Draycos shook his head, somewhat disappointed. “Is that really the best you could’ve done? It’s kinda boring to hear that.”

Vertex snapped the book shut and glared at Draycos as the book vanished into thin air. “As powerful as the artifact is, it can’t make large-scale changes in the memories of the entire world. It’s a simple lack of magic power that prevents it from being able to do so.”

“So that’s why you can’t just use it to make everyone think dragons shouldn’t be hunted or harmed at all?” Draycos had been wondering why they didn’t do that to begin with after being told how the tool worked.”

“Still, though, that doesn’t mean that the artifact won’t ever be capable of such a feat sometime in the future,” Poseidon commented, speaking up for the first time since entering the room.

Vertex shot him a glance. “Watch it, Poseidon,” he warned in a low growl. “That information isn’t supposed to be leaked so easily.

“Oh, come on!” Draycos snapped, annoyed. “Have I still not proven myself trustworthy enough for information? I’m the one who’s going down to the surface and risking my life to find a relic that I know nothing about! At least give me some information!”

“Draycos is right, Vertex,” Damrabe said. “Besides, it’s something that most dragons already know about. Why withhold the information from him now when Poseidon’s probably just gonna tell him later?”

“Busted,” Poseidon laughed, raising both hands in the air in pretended surrender. Vertex continued to glare at him while Theravor and Damrabe snickered.

“Draycos, you must have at least heard something about the Dragon King Festival that’s held every ten years, right?” Theravor questioned. Draycos nodded. “At the end of the festival, the dragons representing each royal family in the festival all pour their magic into the Metra Anomaly, signaling the end of the festival. It’s to help remind us that the four dragons who originally created the Metra Anomaly became the first heads of the royal families, and to signify the unity we have as we continue to prosper in these times Doing this has allowed the tool to slowly gain a massive amount of magic power over the last thousand years. It won’t be long now until it has gained enough magic power to cast large-scale memory manipulation magic over the entire world. That’s dragonkind’s ultimate goal: to cast that magic so we can return to the surface below and live peacefully without such restricted access to the other races.”

So that’s their endgame, huh?

“How many more years until you can do it?”

“We’re not entirely sure at the moment, but both Boreta and Zero have agreed that we may have enough after the next festival or two.”

So it’s only ten or twenty years off, at most. I would be interested in seeing that.

A thought suddenly crossed Draycos’s mind. “Why wait to pour magic into the Metra Anomaly only once every ten years? Can you just pour what magic you still need now and cast the spell already?”

“It’s not that simple,” Vertex answered, shaking his head. The tip of his tail worried a hole in the stone floor behind him as he continued talking.“The Metra Anomaly was constructed using ancient technology with low upper limits. With all the magic we pour into it at the end of each festival, it takes ten years for it to fully absorb the magic and stabilize itself. If we didn’t wait for it to stabilize and add more magic early, we would definitely overload its mana circuits and the whole thing would blow up with the force of all the magic it has accumulated over the centuries. We’d take out the entire world if we tried that at this point. We can’t even reproduce a new one that could handle a constant influx of magic; the technology used for its creation has been lost, and all attempts to replicate it have failed.”

“So, this is the only one you’ll have?” The four other dragons nodded in response to Draycos’s question. He sighed. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s well guarded right now, since it’s so important to all of dragonkind. I sure do hope nothing happens to it.” He reached out with his left hand and knocked two times on the top of the wooden nightstand next to his bed.

“What are you doing?” Damrabe asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

“Knocking on wood,” Draycos replied. “It’s nothing but a superstition where I come from, but if you say something that could end up jinxing yourself, knocking on wood is supposed to prevent that from happening. I’m not the superstitious type, mind you, but my motto is ‘better safe than sorry’.”

All four dragons tilted their heads in confusion after hearing Draycos’s explanation, not understand most of what he said. Theravor shook his head.

“Let’s put the particularities of human culture aside and focus on the near future,” he said. “Draycos, you’re going to be facing off against the dragon Balara tomorrow during the finals of the games. He’s been the runner-up in the tournament for the last five years, and that’s only because he forfeited in the final match each and every time.”

“What?” Draycos shook his head, perplexed. He couldn’t understand why anyone would throw away their chance to leave prison five times in a row. “Why would he ever do something like that?”

“Apparently, he had each and every one of his opponents swear loyalty to him and to serve him once he got out of prison, in exchange for giving them the win.” Damrabe shook his head. “I swear, I don’t understand why he would do such a thing when the Dragon King and Dragon Council are watching and listening to him all the time. It’s pointless to plan in front of your enemies. He’s certainly full of himself.”

“Either way, he seems confident enough that he doesn’t believe letting the Dragon Council and myself could hinder him even if we knew what he’s planning,” Theravor remarked in a low growl. “That confidence has to come from somewhere. He is the former head captain of our guards, so he’s bound to have connections with powerful people.”

Vertex sighed, rubbing his forehead with his index finger and thumb. “But we still haven’t been able to catch him in the act,” he groaned. “He shows no odd behavior while we monitor him nonstop in the prison. The only time he behaves out of character is during the finals of the games every year.”

“Regardless, Balara is more than powerful enough to win the games without seriously exerting himself.” Theravor returned his attention to Draycos. “You’re going to have to be on top of your game during the fight with him tomorrow. Any less and you won’t win. Based on what we know about Balara, he’s more than likely not going to offer you the win in exchange for loyalty to him. You’re not a dragon, so he won’t think much of you. So he’s probably going to try and win tomorrow. You will need to be extremely careful.”

This guy is powerful enough that even Theravor has a decent opinion of his strength, despite the fact that Balara’s a prisoner? This must be pretty serious.

“Alright,” Draycos responded, nodding. “I’ll give you my word, I’ll do my best tomorrow. I don’t want to lose, either.”