CHAPTER 1 - Thus Spake The Oracle

– A Legends of the DragonRider Epilogue

Once upon a time, thousands and thousands of years ago, Iam had been the mightiest of all the Gods – counting within his purview the very concepts of power, ambition and conquest. He had crafted humanity to be weak, yet forever driven by the desire to grow stronger, and gifted them with the determination and ingenuity to walk that path successfully… along with the more well-hidden ability to interbreed with other humanoid species and produce half-bloods, enabling them to thus incorporate the strengths of those other peoples into their own population. He had waged war upon his brethren, led the empires of humanity to conquer and enslave all the other peoples, and sought to become the One True God and rule the world in solitary majesty… coming within a hair’s breadth of succeeding.

That, however, was a long time ago indeed. Now, he was merely a shadow of a shadow, all of his powers gone, and he answered as readily to the name of Lutan as he did Iam, for that was the name he had worn when he walked the earth masquerading as a mortal man, gradually coming to realize the folly of the ambitions he had pursued as a god. All that remained of him was a skull, imbued with his intellect and memories – the wisdom, memories, and perfect recall of a former deity. Well… the knowledge and memories of a deity, anyway, Anitra reflected as she sat before him, hoping to clear up a few burning questions. For all of his countless years and strategic acumen, it did not appear that Lutan had ever really grown particularly wise.

“So – what would you like to know, then?” The floating skull asked pleasantly, and Anitra tapped her chin. “Well, first of all…” she started “…let me just get this straight: You single-handedly created that vast, incredibly potent illusion that kept the entire Utopia completely imperceptible to anyone outside it until, like, yesterday, right?” Lutan nodded readily at this. “I did indeed, though it was no easy task… I used up all of the power I had gathered during my travels, and all that remained of my divinity. Still, it was the best defense I could come up with! At that point, the Utopia had already weathered multiple invasions from, largely, humans, who were all too eager to claim its bottomless wealth for themselves. It would only have gotten worse with time – humanity as a whole was spreading into the region, and once the riches of this valley became widely known, the attacking armies would only grow bigger and bigger. Even with the dragons presenting a united front, under their black-scaled Champion, it was only the fact that each invader had kept their plans secret, so as not to share the plunder with allies, that had ultimately spelled their doom. Trust me. I know humans… quite well.”

That part, at least, was hard to argue with. Nor could she really disagree about what the reaction of humanity as a whole to ‘Hey, we found a valley with infinite gold and diamonds in it, but there’s some dragons squatting there already…’ would have been. “Right…” she said out loud. “And you created that tablet to control the illusion – the one I had to piece together from all across the world. Before you actually made the illusion itself?” That part had always confused her a bit, but Lutan nodded readily enough. “Yes – I was planning to provide the Utopia, called the Valley of Dragons at the time, with a powerful defense, ever since I first visited it… you know, back when the dragons were divided into two tribes and fighting each other to control the crater, and the mines beneath it.”

She’d heard that story a few times, from varying perspectives – including in fairytale-form. But the long and short of it was that the children of each tribe’s leaders had become secret lovers, and thanks to a bit of covert intervention from Lutan, wound up producing an otherwise-impossible egg, which of course hatched the Black Dragon who would go on to lead the united dragons of the valley, fending off all those invasion-attempts Lutan had just mentioned – as well as overseeing the construction of the Citadel, specifically as an impregnable defensive fortification. “So I seeded the pieces of the tablet around the world in my continued journeys – though at the time, I was planning a far less comprehensive illusion. Something a bit closer to what you might find in Mirage City, perhaps, if a bit more advanced. It was only after I returned to the Dragon Utopia, as it had indeed been dubbed by then, and learning just how severe the attacks had been during my absence, that I decided to go… all-out, as it were.”

More specifically, based on the diary Anitra had seen when she investigated his tomb, he’d been struck with guilt over the attacks the Utopia had suffered while he spent a couple of centuries covering his tracks and faking the death of his ‘Lutan’ identity – possibly overreacting a bit, as a result. “Okay, but why spread it out like that?” She asked, rather than point out this detail – no sense embarrassing him. “I get that the pieces of the tablet were supposed to come together when the ‘world was at peace’ and everyone ‘lived in harmony’, but couldn’t you just have… y’know, left it here in the first place? Let the dragons decide who got through the illusion, right from the start?” Especially since, as she didn’t say out loud, this lack of control over the Utopia’s defenses, had basically turned the Utopia into a gilded cage – isolating the dragons within, and ensuring that if they ever left, they couldn’t return. Granted, it had ensured that they continued to venerate Black Dragons, since only they could pass through the ‘secret passage’ that Lutan had left in that illusion, simply by flying between a particular pair of mountain-peaks – but that likely hadn’t been the point of it.

“Ah, I wish I could have…” Lutan replied regretfully, though she rather doubted that he actually realized how close his ‘gift’ had gotten to outright wiping out the Utopia. “But word was already spreading too much by then. Too many people knew, or at least had heard rumors, about the valley. The surrounding area was turning from unexplored wildlands, into an increasingly-settled frontier filled with explorers and adventurers. A steady stream of visitors, dragons or otherwise, would inevitably have drawn eyes to this place, and rest assured… if humanity got an inkling of what was hidden here, they would have found some way to break through the illusion. I built them to surpass such challenges. Obscurity was the Utopia’s best defense – it needed to be left closed for long enough that humanity’s knowledge would fade into myth and legend. Long enough that everyone would forget this was ever anything but a strength-sapping wasteland.”

Lutan sighed and shook his head. “Mind, I did realize, even back then, that the conditions I had set for the tablet’s reactivation might take a very long time to come about. Hence why I hedged my bets, weaving magic into the tablet that could adjust to whatever circumstances might cause it to be put back together again. Some might be a good opportunity to deliver the tablet here, and offer the Utopia a chance to begin cautiously opening its borders again – others, not so much. For example, some bloodthirsty conqueror might hunt down all those hidden enclaves I secreted the tablet-pieces in, murdering or enslaving the populace while claiming the fragments as spoils of war…” There was an undeniable bitterness to that ‘example’, Anitra noted. Clearly, Lutan had little love for the person he had once been, when he was still numbered among the gods.

“You mean the ‘Three Trials’…” she said, hoping to steer him away from any self-hating side-tracks. “They were… certainly tough. And with how they worked, I can certainly imagine that someone who’d left a trail of blood in his wake while gathering them, might’ve been in for a much harder time than me and Blake.” To face your enemy, to face your worst fear, and to face yourself… how might those have looked, to such a fictional tyrant? Not pretty, most likely. The first trial had brought back a most dangerous enemy from their earlier adventures to threaten them again, which would likely have escalated quite a bit if they’d been the sort to leave lots of enemies behind. More to the point, the final trial hadn’t just brought her face-to-face with the worst thing she had ever done – it had also rallied all of the friends and allies that she and Blake had made over the course of their adventures, to support them in their moment of greatest need. So overall, the trials could be seen as testing whether you had made more enemies or allies on your path.

“Actually, about that…” she interjected just as Lutan opened his bony jaws to reply. “Those trials – they were pulled together by ‘Fate-Magic’ bound into the tablet, right? I remember Lezard saying something about that. He actually noticed it, and just decided to go along with it out of curiosity… or at least, that’s what he said. But isn’t that sort of thing Fortuna’s area? Like, it’s the same sort of thing that Tiffany was doing yesterday, to make everything work out for us.” Far from being annoyed at the interruption, Lutan gave a vaguely patronizing chuckle and nodded. “Well, yes – on both counts. However, think of it this way – I was the God of Power and Conquest. That doesn’t mean nobody else can conquer things, just that I was better at it than anybody else, mortal or god. By the same token, fate-manipulation is something all gods can do, with practice – in fact, I believe Lolth eventually developed modest mastery of it, after her… defeat at my hands.” He was leaving out some details there, Anitra knew firsthand, but… well, best not to add a side-track to the side-track by bringing that up.

“Indeed, even mortals can touch the Strings of Fate, in a limited capacity, if they have the knowledge and power to do so…” Lutan thus continued, uninterrupted. “That would be what is referred to as ‘Fate-Magic’. And indeed, I dabbled in the art myself, especially after my fall – from a divine perspective, it is ultimately an art that requires more skill and sophistication than it does raw power, so it seemed an eminently worthwhile pursuit for a freshly-depowered Demigod. As for Fortuna, she was the Goddess of Luck and Chance because she could play those strings like nobody else… some of our brethren even believed that she had found a way to perceive and manipulate the destinies of gods, absurd though that notion was. For that matter, I’ve suspected for some time that she saw, or even manipulated, the circumstances of her own resurrection before facing her demise at my hands… but, regardless, her talent was very real – hence why I knew she would be an incredible addition to our forces, even in demigod form. Tiffany may not have her memories yet, but she does have her abilities – and it took very little prompting from me to bring them out.”

That certainly tracked with what Tiffany had told her about her ‘education’ under Lutan… less a matter of raw power, and more a matter of precise skill, huh? Well, regardless… “That would explain it, I suppose!” she thus acknowledged. “But, to get back on track, I get what you’re saying – by the time I put the tablet together, the Utopia had been forgotten by the outside world, so it was relatively safe for them to start inviting in visitors and trade from beyond their veil of obscurity. And I guess a DragonRider assembling it was one of the scenarios you considered when you made it. But what I was really getting at is… that illusion that’s kept the Utopia hidden all this time, it’s gone for good now, right?”

Lutan again nodded, seeming just a touch wistful. “I’m afraid so…” he admitted. “I reabsorbed all the power I put into it. Or, most of it, anyway – there is always some loss inherent in such a process, though the marvelously high ambient magic of this place helped a lot. Ensured, at least, that the enchantment itself never really declined in potency! And then, of course, I expended the vast majority of that power on maintaining the dome-shield during the battle, and then used the leftovers to briefly reach the Divine Realm for the negotiations with my erstwhile brethren.” A slight smile did crease his exposed teeth, however. “This fortress, of course, was originally built to ward off human invasions, not fellow dragons, hence its relative lack of defenses against such an assault… but, even before the battle, some of the wizards and enchanters now residing here were discussing how to establish a more permanent defense against aerial threats. I’m sure they’ll come up with something, now that they’ve got some time to work with – and a good thing too, seeing as I will not be able to repeat that performance!”

“Meaning, the Utopia is definitively and irrevocably out in the open now…” Anitra pressed, getting to the meat of her question at last. “But what has changed, really, compared to when you put that illusion in place? I mean, humanity’s still out there, and they haven’t gotten appreciably less fond of gold. If anything, there’s more of them, closer to us, than when the surrounding kingdoms were just wild frontiers. Aren’t we just going to see a whole new wave of escalating invasions?” Lutan sighed at this, or perhaps at humanity in general. “Perhaps, to a point…” he admitted. “I certainly would not dare to claim that no human kingdom will ever attack us. For that matter, there are plenty of others who might potentially challenge us. Orcs looking for a good fight, dwarves as hungry for gold as any human, elves who believe we’re a threat to the world’s stability… and there is no longer anything directly preventing such an attack. However, quite a few things have changed, which is why I consider it highly unlikely that we’ll see another invasion anytime soon.”

“First of all, that interval you enabled – which, I hear, people have begun to refer to as the Utopian Renaissance – where the dragons were able to invite visitors while still remaining covert…” Lutan eagerly continued “...was very significant, however brief it may have seemed from a draconic perspective. During this time, they added many non-draconic residents, creating a far greater diversity than they ever enjoyed before and, in so doing, covered some of their own weaknesses. They now have the ingenuity of humanity, the creative drive of the gnomes, the sagely knowledge of the elves, and so on and so forth, at their disposal. These people played a key role in defending the Utopia yesterday, even if most of them did not personally participate in the siege. And without diminishing the contribution that the Equus have made, providing as they do the majority of the Utopia’s food-supply, bringing the Rakshasa onboard was the real coup – your doing, too, as I understand it…”

Anitra felt slightly embarrassed at that. It wasn’t as if she’d really set out to make some kind of strategic move to strengthen the Utopia. She’d just run into Manushya during her mission to Ganarãjya, heard her sob-story about how her people were forced to live in secrecy, hiding their true nature to avoid persecution, and offered her and hers shelter in the Utopia on a whim. She hadn’t really expected a general migration of the entire species, or what remained of it, nor being hailed as their savior – or even really how useful they’d prove. Come to think of it, though – the Ganarãjyan troops hadn’t really made much of a hassle about the fact that there were Rakshasa living in the Utopia, had they? To them, perhaps, the Man-Eaters of the Jungle were just boogeymen from their grandparents’ ghost-stories, a piece of distant, half-forgotten history… and such surviving tales likely bore little resemblance to what the Rakshasa were today, anyway.

“...which leads into the other big change that this ‘Renaissance’ enabled…” Lutan forged on, happy as ever to gab away as long as his audience wasn’t visibly falling asleep. “The Utopia is no longer just some valley filled with savage dragons, waiting for ‘civilized’ humans to conquer and claim it. They have diplomatic relations. Trade-agreements, treaties, friends, even allies. Some of them are the result of your own efforts, or that of your sisters. Others, the work of ‘alumni’ who studied here in the Citadel for a time, then returned to their homeland and gained influence as teachers or advisors to nobility or royalty. All of it, however, is supported and, to some degree, enabled by the Rakshasa spy-network that has been established. Do not underestimate the value of a strong intelligence-service when it comes to maintaining friendly, diplomatic relations! All of this boils down to what is commonly called ‘soft power’ – the ability to exercise your nation’s influence without military might or threats of same – and this is something that dragons, by themselves, have never really been capable of deploying. However many gifts Takharsis gave them in their creation, subtlety was never one – well, leaving aside extraordinary specimens like Nycht, anyway…”

In a sense, Anitra already knew all that, though she hadn’t really considered just how much of a difference these allies – many of whom hadn’t even really known who or what they were allied with – really made. Mind, a lot of kingdoms that the Utopia had until now shared covert bonds with, might benefit greatly from the sheer shock that the Dragon Utopia’s appearance on the world stage, as a military and economic powerhouse, was likely to cause. After all, while other, less friendly, nations tried to grapple with the new reality and attempted to sort fact from exaggerated rumors, those places would have sagely Utopian alumni already positioned in the halls of power – and now at last able to speak freely of their experiences there, thus providing their lords with clear, concise information about what the Utopia was and what it stood for. Being able to act intelligently while others were blundering around in confusion was an immense advantage, on the battlefield or in the arena of international politics, no doubt about that.

“Now, all that being said, the events of yesterday also work to the Utopia’s advantage…” Lutan continued, with the slightly awkward tone of someone who was trying to enumerate their own contributions to a greater project without coming across as arrogant or self-serving. “Indeed, such considerations were part of the calculus when the overall objectives and goals of the battle were laid out. Starting with the treaty I was able to negotiate – you remember its wording, yes? None of the gods can initialize, sponsor, or otherwise support any kind of attack on the Utopia. Of course, outside of theocracies, they cannot dictate foreign policies to the rulers of kingdoms… but most sane monarchs are likely to reassess any invasion-plans when their religious advisors answer all requests for assistance with ‘No’. Even those who are willing to ignore such a clear message would have to be prepared to march without any Clerics or Paladins beside them – and healing-potions will only go so far.”

Nor was this the only part of yesterday’s events that might give anyone with a shred of sanity pause, of course. “Consider this – the surrounding nations, and any further out who are able to get reasonably accurate information out of them, may not know exactly what happened…” Lutan pressed on, clearly relieved to not be talking about his own part in things anymore. “But they do know that something very big and very terrifying suddenly appeared alongside a swarm of dragons big enough to blot out the skies, and then came here. No mortal alive in this era has seen a Divine Avatar before, but all the same, being anywhere near one is usually enough to tell how terrifyingly powerful such a thing is… and that goes double for Takharsis!” Absolutely true, that. Even for Anitra, it had taken some effort to push through the sheer, overwhelming weight of the manifest Dragon-Goddess’ presence. “Then, there was a big explosion in the skies above us – thanks to the way Lezard Valeth and Raistlin Majere’s part of the plan turned out. And, finally, a much smaller number of dragons came flying back out of here, fleeing in all directions.”

Indeed, even to an outside observer who didn’t know exactly what that gargantuan, five-headed dragon was, a cursory glance at what had happened would still spell out, quite clearly, ‘Don’t fuck with us’ – that, Anitra could easily see. Anyone contemplating an attack on the Utopia would have to ask themselves if they really thought they could rally a force more formidable than that, whatever that had been. From that perspective, it did seem likely that only a true madman would actually consider such a course of action – and find himself swiftly isolated in the process, thanks to that ‘soft power’ Lutan had spoken of earlier. That sort of attack would be easy for today’s Utopia to crush, without any of the major preparations or disruptions that Takharsis’ assault had necessitated… and hey, a fresh bundle of prisoners-of-war to trade to their infernal allies were always welcome! Sure, the Utopia’s dragons firmly opposed slavery, but the Renegades-faction treated their prisoners more like milking-cows, and primarily milked them for pleasure, which made the whole thing a lot easier for the dragons to swallow…

Still, that did bring another question to Anitra’s mind. “Just how many dragons died yesterday, anyway?” She asked, not really sure whether she was feeling some concern for their kind, or just curiosity. “I mean… I know there aren’t that many of them, and they don’t breed very quickly…” This, at least, made Lutan’s ghostly face turn sober. “A lot. We do not have an exact count yet, but the invaders’ losses were extensive…” he remarked darkly. “And you are certainly right about their low numbers to begin with, and how slowly those can be replenished. On top of that, the infamous Dragonslayers were massacring entire Dragonhomes less than two decades ago – which, for dragons, might as well have been last week. At a loose estimate, the overall population of dragons in this world has declined by roughly sixty percent since your journey began… and, at this point, the more decentralized White Dragons and Swamp-Dragons make up a far larger portion of dragonkind than ever before. Basically every Dragonhome has been severely depopulated – unless, of course, one counts the Utopia as a Dragonhome, in which case it stands as the sole exception.”

Sixty percent of an entire species, dead – largely, in the final reckoning, because of her. A rather chilling thought for Anitra, even if she never intended any of that. She hadn’t meant for her mother to turn into a crazed avenger bent on draconic genocide, but she had certainly caused it, in that Quickening-induced daze of her first night as a DragonRider. Nor had she intended for a vast army of dragons to throw themselves at the Utopia, to their own detriment – but between bringing the Tablet of Lutan to the Utopia, challenging Lolth back when she was helping Direza rid Commorragh of her influence, and finding Lutan’s skull while raiding the Tomb of Liu-Tang in Qinxiang, more or less just to fulfill her own curiosity, she was indeed the main reason why it had happened. If she was to take credit for the accidental benefits of inviting the Rakshasa to the Utopia, she had to also bear the blame for accidentally causing the death of more than half of the world’s dragons…

“Ah… it sounds worse than it is, I assure you…” Lutan quickly tried to reassure her, no doubt noticing the look on her face. “For all her faults, Takharsis did put quite a bit of thought into her creations. The dragons were, and are, a masterpiece – none have ever disputed that, least of all me.” Hence, Anitra reflected wryly, why he’d stolen that masterpiece wholesale, making the Black Dragons as his own twist on that winning formula. “As it happens, the dragon-population is somewhat self-adjusting. You know why dragons are driven to build a hoard of precious metals and gems, yes? Beyond merely ‘because Takharsis told them to’, I mean…”

Anitra wrinkled her brow for a moment. She’d heard about that, all right, when she first moved into the Utopia and the dragons explained how and why they were able to live so differently here compared to regular Dragonhomes. “They use them as nests, right?” She thus replied. “They need lots of gold and such packed around their eggs, or they won’t hatch.” Lutan nodded happily – as usual, he was channeling the ever-so-slightly patronizing energy of an enthusiastic teacher explaining a topic to a moderately attentive student. “Exactly. The high magical conductivity of those materials help to channel magical energy into the eggs, and the embryonic dragons cannot develop properly without a certain threshold of magical energy. More powerful races, like the Red, Gold and Silver variants, have significantly higher thresholds for a successful hatching than the likes of Green, Blue and Brown, of course… but, I shouldn’t get sidetracked. If you are curious about the details, I am certain there are suitable treatises in the Great Library.”

“The point is that this effectively limits the ability of dragons to procreate and increase their numbers…” Lutan forged on blithely. “A Dragonhome can only accumulate so much wealth, at the end of the day. There is only so much gold that can be dug from the ground or stolen from surrounding lands – and as the population grows, the wealth gets spread thinner and thinner, making it harder for each couple to successfully hatch their young. This, consequently, leads to more internal challenges as desperate dragons seek to claim one another’s hoards through trial by combat, often with deadly results – effectively thinning their numbers. Unlike me, Takharsis never wanted her children to conquer the world, I suppose – only to endlessly scramble and claw for every morsel of wealth they could reach…”

“Actually, about that whole ‘fighting each other for their hoards’ thing…” Anitra interjected. She remembered hearing about this practice before, sure – indeed, Inferand, Blake’s adoptive father, was an aging Red Dragon who’d abandoned his hoard and retired to a hermitage in order to avoid being killed by a younger dragon eager to claim the wealth that he surely still had secreted away somewhere. “I never quite understood how that actually works. Doesn’t it just result in all the wealth winding up in the hoards of the most powerful Golds and Reds? I mean, there’s not a Green in the world who can take on a grown Red in a one-on-one duel, so how do Greens ever accumulate ANY kind of hoard without just having it taken away by their larger cousins?”

Lutan seemed, for a moment, torn between his eagerness to lecture – on any topic whatsoever, really – and marginal annoyance at the interruption. “Even dragons have some cultural restrictions on their greed…” he replied after that moment. “Essentially, the accepted system of ‘challenges’ that allows one dragon to claim the hoard of another is only valid within the same race – so only a Green can seek to claim another Green’s hoard. This keeps the fights close enough that no dragon will lightly undertake it – even if you are the better fighter, it only takes one lucky blow on the part of your desperate adversary to turn the tables. Wealth mostly moves between the different races by way of tribute, offerings, protection-money, purchased loyalty, payment for services rendered, and so on… but, I once again encourage you to study the treatises of the Great Library for the minutiae of draconic society!”

“That point I was getting at…” Lutan continued, giving her no chance to interrupt him further, “...is that, right now, the world’s many Dragonhomes are in the opposite situation. Well, once all the dragons make it home anyway. After all, what will they find upon their return? Clutching females who couldn’t join them and, outside of that, many an unattended hoard. Protected by various wards and traps, hidden away in secret places, sure – but none of that will stop a determined dragon who knows that the hoard’s owner isn’t coming back to claim it. The wealth of the fallen will be redistributed among the survivors, with the lion’s share naturally going to the powerful Reds and Golds who also need it the most. This, then, will vastly increase their ability to produce viable hatchlings, enabling their population to rapidly bounce back… well, for certain values of ‘rapidly’, anyway. These are still dragons we’re talking about and, outside of my own Blacks, it takes a couple of centuries for any dragon to grow to maturity.”

That did make sense, Anitra had to admit – and, on reflection, the same must have applied to the small number of Dragonhomes that the Dragonslayers had raided under her mother’s leadership. Most of those fanatics hadn’t really cared about the dragons’ accumulated wealth, and the one who had – the charming yet utterly amoral pirate, Jack Sparrow – had ultimately returned most of what he had managed to collect, under some duress. Sure, he’d probably found some way to still draw a profit – brief though their encounter had been, she felt strangely certain that she had his measure on that front – but even just from the pile of treasure he’d presented Blake with in an attempt to buy the life of the captured songstress, Menolly, there was no way he’d actually claimed every hoard in each of the pillaged Dragonhomes. That would’ve been more riches than an army could carry away, nevermind one man. So presumably, he’d only managed to rob some of the less well-defended hoards before his comrades started losing their patience… and once they’d departed, dragons from other Dragonhomes no doubt descended on the place, both to investigate what had happened, and to claim this abandoned wealth for their own. Still that angle did raise an unpleasant question…

“Okay…” Anitra remarked, following that train of thought. “But what happens when humans, dwarves, and others who also like gold start to realize that all the Dragonhomes are still as wealthy as ever, but now way more poorly defended? I mean, many of the survivors who’re making their way home right now will have been injured, and regardless of how the hatching-rate is going to look in the immediate future, it’ll take centuries for those hatchlings to grow into their own. Mountains of gold, protected by wounded and traumatized veterans, pregnant females, and mindless hatchlings…” Lutan winced slightly at this, his eyes drifting to the side. “Yes, well, that is a concern…” he admitted. “And a good reason for the Utopia to move ahead with opening negotiations sooner rather than later – beyond just a non-aggression treaty, we could offer those depopulated Dragonhomes protection. Yesterday’s enemies are tomorrow’s allies, after all – and I fervently hope for a future where all of dragonkind can stand united, without being directed by Takharsis’ overbearing will…”

That would, of course, imply that said ‘united dragonkind’ was being directed by the Utopia’s will, Anitra reflected, keeping her face dispassionate. In the end, that was the whole point of that ‘soft power’ that Lutan kept talking about, wasn’t it? To reduce the world’s now-godless Dragonhomes to client-states and vassals of the Utopia – not by oppressing them with force, but by making them dependent on the Utopia’s support. Gold to feather their nests, reinforcement to secure their borders, diplomatic intervention to prevent incursions, intelligence-sharing to warn of attacks… with the dragons’ racial pride cracked by their defeat and the loss of their goddess, the conditions were perfect for the Dragon Utopia to benevolently worm its way into those cracks, and become the effective, if unofficial, rulers of all dragonkind. Well, there were still the Swamp-Dragons and White Dragons to consider, on that front, but no doubt there were plans for that…

He really couldn’t help it, could he? No matter how much she thought of him as kindly old Lutan, he was still the ghost of Iam, God of Power, at the end of the day. However benevolent and well-meaning his philosophies, the precepts of domination were part of his most fundamental being. The strictures of the new Divine Treaty would at least prevent him from directly recommending such approaches, but how much difference would that really make when so many would willingly come to ask him for his insights? Not that she could think of a better approach to take in this situation, Anitra reluctantly admitted to herself. The proposed plan of action would both help dragonkind recover from the devastating losses it had suffered, and put it on track for a less combative relationship with the rest of the world. Which would ultimately be better for everyone… presumably.

“Yes… let’s hope the negotiations go well.” Anitra said out loud, leaning forwards. “And with that, I think I’ve got all my questions answered.” She started getting to her feet, pondering how to make the most of the hopefully still-ongoing party, her most burning concerns quieted for now – when Lutan nervously interjected. “Ah… that is good. However, I do have a… warning for you, of sorts. A matter that might cause some issues for you and your partner, Blake. Would you care to hear it?” So that was where the lines of the new Divine Treaty were drawn, Anitra realized with a carefully-hidden smile. It was tempting to just say ‘no’, simply because she could – but, that would be rather petty, and potentially also dangerous, if that warning was actually serious...

PREVIEW ENDS. What dire warning may the fallen God, Iam, have in store for Anitra? And will she have enough time to rejoin the ongoing victory-celebration when he's finally done talking? Yes. Yes she will. This story isn't all dry exposition, so if you want to read the whole thing, you can find it on my Discord-server, link is on my Profile.