The Last Dragon Lord

Intermezzo III

INTERMEZZO III

The Dawn Age began with so much prosperity that the world quickly forgot what came before.

Entire kingdoms were founded on bedrocks of magic. Kings had direct access to the aquifer.

Dragons did nothing as magic use proliferated. They had to come to terms with the reality that, with elves getting magic directly from the aquifer, the dragon race was becoming irrelevant.

Humans achieved new levels of knowledge, leading the world with technological innovation.

Elves combined magic with human technology, and civilization charged forward faster than in all the previous centuries combined.

The world became a society in pursuit of magic, using it to fulfill its desires.

In the early days of the Dawn Age, one could see the aura of sparkling cities miles away. The world was so full of magic you could taste it, pull a spell out of the air.

But with higher magic use came a higher number of magical creatures, born out of the byproduct of casting.

Magic Eaters were among them.

Many varieties of magic-eating creatures stalked the wildlands, preying on travelers when the food supply of magic ran out.

Citizens of the world called it the Magical Problem: when magic use was low, society inched forward; when it was high, society raced into the new dawn but had to deal with increased monster populations.

The only way to get rid of the monster problem?

Magic.

Lots of magic, enough to empty the aquifer and not even make a dent in the monster population.

The kingdoms of the world sent emissaries to a city on the western continent where the concentration of magic and monsters was highest. The emissaries represented dragons, humans, and elves.

They all agreed: they could not sustain the current level of beasts.

The group of emissaries was named the Hope Council, for they had the impossible task of instilling hope in a world full of fear. The city was called the City of Magic. Over time, the ideas merged together, and the town became Magic Hope City.

Dragons found themselves relevant again, recapturing aquifer access points that they had lost during the reign of Fenroot. Keeper dragons helped control magical flow in and out of the wells, carefully regulating periods of excess and periods of scarcity, monitoring the monster populations. During the high-use periods, humans and elves focused their efforts on weapons technology to stave off the beasts; during low use, Crafter dragons repaired the land, creating hills and shaping the landscape so that it became less hospitable to monsters by reducing their hiding places.

An order of monster hunters was founded during this period. Born out of a sense of loyalty, duty, and fear, the Aquiferians took an oath to protect the world from all magical threats. A secret reserve, it lay in wait, training until the next threat arose. It fought off many waves of monsters in its early years.

But by the time The Aquiferians reached its maturity, the world had stabilized.

The world found order in chaos, balance on the verge of death.

But it would not last, for there was one race that began to distance itself from society ...

ACT IV