“The streams are what your soul connects with. That’s likely why you feel the way you feel.”

  -Heard by Father two years after the awakening.

  Coras sat down, leaning against a tree and sunk into the rich soil underneath beneath his weight. His armor began failing him, and so he’d need to rest it. It was the only thing he would have improved upon, if he could find the maker.

  Nearie’s question didn’t only belong to her. He had originally searched for the maker, only to find out they’d disappeared less than a year after its creation. When he had gotten it, he had thought that it had been crafted by several plurimus. The fact that it wasn’t spoke wonders of the crafter.

  Coras stood up. His next step however, cracked the ground underneath. Shattering and falling apart, Coras fell.

  As he did, he saw glowing lines attached to the walls. They spread and spiraled like veins or roots. His fall continued. The lines were intricate in their forms, pulx often was, but they seemed more wild than they had been a few centuries ago.

  After seemingly a solid minute of falling, Coras landed feet first, hearing the ring of solid metal from the impact. The greaves in his armor sounded as they cracked, he could even feel his bones strain from the impact.

  Looking up, he noticed the walls had been cut perfectly round. Another thing he noticed was that he couldn’t see the day’s sunlight. How far had he fallen? Well, he wouldn’t be able to jump that, and his armor would give out before he could climb to the top. Was he stuck then?

  No, he would eventually get out. Even if he had to carve out a slanted path upward with his bare hands, he would get out. A light flickered on to his right, then another and another. They formed a pathway hanging above a metal walkway.

  Eventually, at the end of the pathway, the lights revealed an enormous door. The door was perhaps fifty yards wide and a hundred and twenty yards tall.

  Thinking it could help him out faster, Coras made his way over. When he stepped onto the lighted pathway however, he heard a hollow sound reverberate throughout the metal.

  He looked down the side of the walkway to find an even deeper hole similarly to the top, the walls seemed to be mined perfectly round. This was definitely man-made. Coras continued.

  The pathway held his weight, though the solid metal bridge did groan when he reached the center. At the door, Coras knocked. No need to be impolite when he was going to ask for help.

  The clangs reverberated throughout the hole, the echo seeming to stretch for eternity. Nothing. After several minutes, he knocked again. After an even longer wait, Coras put his hand to the door, intending to shove it open.

  When he did, the walls began to hum. Glowing pulx lines began flowing into his armor. The door cracked in the center, as a sound of metal beams moved slowly out of the way on the other side.

  The door opened slowly, swinging out like slow inevitability. Watching, Coras wondered if he would even be capable of stopping them. The thought stopped when there was enough room to walk in.

  It had been curious to him how easily his mind could discard things when no emotion was attached to them. That was before they had faded completely however. It wasn’t so now. Such was the reality of feeling nothing.

  Lights flickered on as the door began to close. Coras froze the moment the lights had all turned on. He didn’t freeze from fear or confusion. He had no such emotions, he had frozen because it would be slightly inconvenient if it were to wake it up.

  Before him laid asleep a beast that made the enormous door necessary. Coras had only ever seen three in his lifetime. But they had been babies, and were likely still barely adolescents.

  This creature was by no means an adolescent. The dragon had scales of golden red that gave off a hue of purple pulx light. Its form exerted power as the things muscles tensed and began to move.

  Coras began taking slow steps backward to avoid a confrontation with the beast. As its feet stretched outward, the tail whipped around, slamming into the wall. The stone broke beneath the force and debris sprayed into an already large pile.

  The dragon exhaled through the nose, its breath smelling of something flammable. The gas would have suffocated a normal person.

  Eventually, the dragon relaxed, and giving no other indication of waking up, Coras slowly began making his way back to the door. He found that his existence was one of choosing purely based on the pros and cons of the situation.

  In this case, tempting to wake up a fully grown dragon to find a faster way out of a hole had too few pros to justify.

  “Who are you?”

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

  Coras turned to find a man dressed in workers' clothing staring at him through a pair of glasses. He spoke loudly, as if there wasn’t a life ending nightmare in the very room. Perhaps the dragon wouldn’t be woken up so easily then?

  “I need help,” Coras said. “I mistakenly fell down a hole and need a way back to the surface.”

  “You fell?” The man said, confused. “You survived that fall?”

  “I'll pay for a way out,” Coras said, trying to get their man on a more important topic.

  The man looked Coras up and down, then changed his eye color. “Who are you,” the man asked again, suspicious.

  Coras responded by throwing a bag of coins at the man. Two hundred full raches should keep him from questioning, as well as get him to lead Coras to the surface.

  The man didn’t pick them up. He barely even acknowledged them.

  “I don’t care for coin,” he said.

  The silence continued. Perhaps a more pleasant conversation would keep the man from asking questions. In Coras’ experience at least, talking about a man's strengths, along with no small amount of praise would drop nearly any’s guard.

  “You are a chantless correct,” Coras said, “it takes great skill and training for such an ability. You must have quite the talent. And being able to be calm in the presence of a best like this must give you nerves of steel.”

  The man narrowed his eyes, seeming to get even more hostile. Well, the “nearly” was an important part of the chances. After yet another tense moment however…

  “Why-why yes,” the man said, smirking and puffing out his chest slightly. “I have dedicated my life to this dragon, and so naturally I would pick up a thing or two.” He lifted his chin. “Of course few could even stand in the presence of such a primordial creature without soiling themselves in fear.”

  The man lifted his chin even higher. The imagery wasn’t the best, but Coras could work with it.

  “Yes indeed.” Coras responded, matching his tone. “I could barely contain myself. I narrowly kept from passing out, that pulx of yours must be incredible to see right through me.”

  The man’s grin widened, and he scoffed.

  “Well this dragon has been my life's work. There is few a man cannot understand when living in such a presence. Would you like tea? I imagine your curiosity of my research has peeked. Not to worry, I am benevolent enough to see it sated.”

  Coras didn’t respond immediately, saying the wrong thing might ruin his progress. Though accepting the compliment seemed safest, others had once accused him of deceit for similar words.

  Deciding silence was wiser, he eventually followed the man in another room, then sat humbly on the floor, listening as the man rambled about his research.

  He made sure to catch as much as he could, if only to keep the man in a good mood.

  “Well, a dragon's breath may be interesting, but their scales, now that is another thing entirely.” He picked up a scale. “Marvellous thing isn’t it. Even disconnected from the body, the scale radiates with mana.”

  “Is that so?” Coras asks.

  “It is. But that's not the only discrepancy. Dragons mana can be absorbed.”

  Coras noticed this.

  “Ah, I see your interest has peaked,” the man said. “Yes, their mana is pure filtered pulx. Where mana is the lifeforce of others, unique to each soul that holds it, dragons do not rely on it to live. In fact it's quite the opposite. It seems as though mana clings to the creature's.”

  “So they don't create the mana they use. How do they obtain it then?”

  The man grinned, “glad you asked.”

  He touched the wall on the other side of the room, pressing the scale to it. Glowing lines showed on the wall and seemed to be getting sucked in. Coras didn’t care, he already knew dragons absorbed the planet's mana. He was now wondering how long it would take for him to actually receive help.

  “As you can see,” the man continued. “Dragons absorb mana from Ezrial itself, which is the reason they are so powerful. As far as I’ve gathered, dragons are the closest things to celestial beings. This is the reason they have such a connection to the planet.”

  It was false, of course. Dragons could absorb mana not because of divine favor, but because they were partly spiritual—yet grounded by enough essence to anchor it. Coras was similar in nature, though far less balanced.

  Creatures like undead, elves, the sylphs—too much spirit, too little essence. Mana slipped through them like smoke through a sieve.

  Humans, though… they were the enigma of the world. Perfect vessels for mana—too perfect. Their essence was so complete that another’s mana could not take root within them unless filtered first.

  A human could hold more power than most races alive, but they could never share it freely. Perhaps that was why they thrived where others faded.

  “Now, I believe you wanted to get out of this hole, correct?” the man said.

  Coras nodded, “thank you for the lesson,” he replied getting up. No need to aggravate the man.

  The man didn’t respond however, making Coras pause. “One more thing you should know about dragon scales.”

  He picked up a small scale, one half the size of the last, and tossed it toward him. Coras caught it, causing his armor to lock in place.

  “It destabilizes other core pulx.”

  Coras tried moving his armor, but the thing was locked tight. He would need to break the joints to begin moving again, but doing so would force him to let the armor repair itself, slowing him. Yet again, there were too many cons to justify the pros.

  “I don’t know who you are,” the man said, his tone shifting. “And I don’t know how you got here, but do you really think I’d let you leave without at least examining your armor? It’s the least you can do for taking my knowledge.”

  His eyes shifted colors, a sign of the perceived pulx. He could likely see the mana Coras’ armor held, more than that, he would see the mana from the scale being absorbed.

  Coras knew this from his hasty reaction in running out the door into the dragon's room. Only a moment later, Coras’ armor dropped the scale. He retrieved the scale with a cloth, and was lucky it didn’t freeze him again.

  The room shook. His first thought was the dragon, and sure enough a massive claw smashed through the wall, hitting Coras and making a crater on the opposite wall.

  Coras’s armor locked up again from the dragon's touch, not that it mattered. The beast pulled Coras from the room, falling rubble and debris clanging against his helm and shoulderblades.

  There he was met face to face with the large eyes of an ancient beast.