Peace
#1 of Draconic Rebellion
"This is it?" one of the soldiers whispered, looking into the end of the cave. "Is there nothing else here? This mission was useless!"
"Shut it," barked Alex, the army's youngest commanding officer at 25, "we're looking for artifacts, not elephants! It's not gonna be cakewalk to find these."
Alex was a bit curious himself about the reason for the mission, but being the commanding officer, felt his perfect track record should not be beaten by a silly artifact...after all, he successfully found eleven other artifacts in prior missions this year. If all went well, and mythology proved correct, the twelfth artifact would promise to be the catalyst to end the attacks by dragons the human cities had faced the past hundred years. It wasn't that some people didn't respect or revere dragons, but human expansion now covered over half the planet, breaking an ancient treaty forged between dragonkind and humanity.
"Sir!" barked a voice, "we might have found something!"
Alex quickly rushed across the rocky cave floor to the soldier, eyes following the soldier's finger pointing to...an iridescent shape lying a truck length away from a giant abyss.
"Get out the ladders," commanded Alex. The soldier quickly set down his pack and took out a cube of metal. Alex wrote a crude estimate of the across the abyss and placed it on the cube, which absorbed the metallic ink. The cube scissored out, spanning the distance of the pit. Alex walked across the metallic surface slowly to prevent sudden shifts of weight from jarring one side of the ladder off the edge and leading him into the darkness. As Alex made it to the other side, he stopped and gaped - the shape appeared to be a dragon scale, glowing and radiating warm tones of light. Alex picked it up; it was surprisingly light and cool to touch, and placed it in his pack. Crossing back towards his men, he was excited that the prophecy could now fulfill itself! No more living in fear from draconic attack!
His mind rested on one thing on the way back to camp...he opened up his wallet and looked at a picture of his wife and son. His eyes teared up as he saw their faces. "This is for you," he mumbled, bowing his head in reverential silence.
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"What is it that I feel?" a raspy voice rang out through the night sky. "The powers ebb differently tonight." A white dragon hobbled over to the window of his house and peered out the window. "Something feels...familiar about this..."
He quickly hobbled back to his desk, pulling out an ancient book.
"The Great Civil War...humans showing up...no, those aren't it..." he murmered, flipping pages through the book.
"No, not that, not that...and -" quickly he glanced at the heading of the book. He rushed to the phone. "Pardon me, your excellency, but I think you'll want to hear this..."
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Night had fallen into the camp. Alex quietly retreated to his quarters after a late dinner, his men unaware of the significance of their find. It was better that way; they would demand him take it to the general immediately.
"The general can always see these tomorrow," he thought, "but I wish to take one last look at them before our meeting tomorrow and sleep well tonight."
Alex took the scale out of the bag and placed it on the desk in front of him. He walked on the carpeted floor towards a cold, metallic safe, entered the combination, and opened it up. One bag was all that the safe contained, but that one bag contained the eleven other artifacts, all unique in their right. He placed each item on the desk - an intricate carving of a dragon's eye, a dragon's tooth, a mysterious ring, and eight runes carved from four precious stones - diamond, ruby, sapphire, and emerald. He was positive that these items had not seen the light of day for years, let alone all in one place.
Alex was in awe of them, watching the light from the room shining through the stones and causing intricate patterns to dance on the table.
"Well, time to get some rest," he said, picking up the artifacts to put them in the bag. He zipped up the bag, put it on the table, turned off the lights, and tried to go to sleep.
It wasn't a restful sleep by any means; Alex was unable to sleep, excited by the artifacts and still mesmerized by how they looked. He closed his eyes again, and fell off to sleep.
Slowly, a glow filled the room. Alex stirred in his sleep, and bolted up when a giant rip echoed through the room. He saw a shape glowing brighter and brighter.
"Who's there?!" he said, shielding his eyes from the light.
A piercing shock flew up his spine to his head, and the glow enveloped all his senses. Every last neuron in his mind screamed in pain.
"How is this happening?!" his mind yelled, "These...artifacts! Do they cause death to those who use them?"
As he slowly succumbed to unconsciousness, one word echoed in the back of his mind: "Rebirth."
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The white dragon felt the burst of light echo through the night like a wall of wind. "It has begun."