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Nestled in a dip between two hills in Lifthraien, is a town named Morning Glory. The town seems small, and inexistent at first glance, it's simply a farming community. And then you look within the caves.

Morning Glory was originally a farming community, and it still is. In fact, most of Lifthraien's fruits and vegetables come from Morning Glory. However, the people who live there had limited space to build, and so they began to dig.

Despite simple logic, Morning Glory has streets carved into and mined deep through the hills. They aren't ugly, muddy, or filled with exposed ore and coal, but have been decorated with bricks, panels, and slabs of decorative stones and tiles. The sides of the streets have glass panels in them, covering the streams of liquid fire running through out the buried city. The houses themselves were carved from the main streets, but were equally decorative.

Yes, the town was beautiful and splendid... until one day, two hundred people armed with weapons, tools, and all their worldly possessions arrived, begging for help. It's a good thing the people of Morning Glory are kind hearted, otherwise we might've frozen to death in the bitter cold nights of Lifthraien.

An entire street was given to our people, and we were told that we need to earn our food after the first night. Most of us already had food, but even so, some enjoyed working in fields, and others just wanted more food. Of course, there wasn't a direct connection between work and food, people had to get paid, first.

Lifthraien uses a kind of money, very different from ours. Us Canines simply use copper pieces, and rely on trade and the weight of the copper pieces to determine pay. Lifthraien's are different. They use solid gold coins, and everything's value is loose and determined by who you're buying from and who's paying you. It didn't take long to realize that most people were trying to rip you off, simply because there were taxes and governmental profits to be made. It didn't feel fair.

Luckily, most of the taxes only apply to home owners, scheduled workers, and citizens. Most of us were none of these things, so we only had to pay for food and drink. Of course, there were ways around this. Some how, a few of the Dragonoids had decided upon a way to make money without working. No one figured out what it was, but they weren't greedy with this trick. They shared the food they bought, and it wasn't bad food, it just felt better if you bought the food with your own hard earned money. Only parents of young children and the elders consistently accepted the food.

I didn't have to work. I wanted to, in fact we all did, but Zander believed the system was broken and barbaric, so we weren't allowed to have money. There were five of us in the dorm. Me, Zander, Sebastion, Nagt'Kuv, and Neyclos. While we were only there for three days, we were starving and Zander was being an asshole.

The first day, nothing happened. Literally, nothing happened. We all rested from the exhausting forty mile hike that had taken a whole night. We ate our rations and enjoyed the time to rest. It was nice just cuddling up to Nagt'Kuv's warm body, and he seemed to enjoy it as well. Sebastion and Zander seemed to be taking a liking for each other, and I think they actually slept together that night.

The second day, we were going to work, when Zander decided against it. He claimed that only a pervert would see such a society as fully functioning, and then barricaded himself against the door with a bunch of furniture so that we had to have permission to enter or leave the apartment, as did anyone else. Of course, Nrasky and Duskle wanted to talk with us, and they couldn't, since they worked for and used money. Zander's an idiot, and Sebastion didn't sleep with him that night.

The third day, everything fell apart. Zander was still holding out without food, and we were to the point where we would've eaten the prick had Nrasky not told Zander that we were leaving. Zander put the furniture back while the rest of us snuck off and ate food away from him.

Obviously, once we were out of the town, he immediately started begging Nrasky and Duskle to give him food. No one would give him food, under the argument that we still had another night before we'd be out of the valley, and thus money would still be used. They told him he could have food if he paid for it, but he didn't have any money because he was being a dick the two days before.

We made camp on the edge of the river, and some tried to fish, while Zander was going insane. He was laying on the grass, and was badly dehydrated and starving. He started hallucinating and kept trying to eat pebbles. I couldn't stand seeing him like that and caved in, giving him some of my food. The others realized what I was doing, then realized why, and started treating him normally again.

The last day we were in Lifthraien was dark and depressing. The sky was so cloudy that everything was darkened, and it was raining so hard that it hurt. Zander was tired and sluggish, and we kept trying to wake him up to feed him. He'd refuse to take food, and finally started force feeding him. It was sad to see how badly starvation can fuck with someone, and he slept on Nagt'Kuv's back most of the day.

We finally got out of Lifthraien around midnight, and were pleasured with the warmth of a dragon's cave for the night. Nrasky and his son had spoken to the dragon in a dark, strange language, and the owner decided we were good company. He was a massive, scarlet and black dragon, owning a huge hoard of gold, silver, and gems. He pushed it all out of the way so that we couldn't get it, and then kept all of us warm and dry for the night.

I slept in the arms of Nagt'Kuv again, who was getting more and more attached to me when I didn't like him that way. Zander was acting really weird, and it freaked us all out, some even avoided him just because he was acting so weird, and finally Nrasky ended up using a spell to knock him out. Sebastion was trying to keep Zander warm, and Duskle slept alone that night. Nrasky had gone to have a conversation with the dragon, and the slow rumbling sound being emitted from the dragon's throat all night long made it nearly impossible to sleep. On the bright side, a few of us got to have a semi-normal conversation before getting tired.

"So, you're from the Savannah?" Trying to talk to a Lion was like trying to make small talk with a stranger. It's weird and uncomfortable.

Ark's voice was deep and gritty, borderline growling, "Of course, where else would you find such a magnificent creature?"

"Any where west of the desert or savannah." [Sebastion]

"Hey!" [Duskle]

"You wanna go, maggot?!" Ark bolted up, holding his arms in a pose, ready to punch Sebastion.

"Woah, calm down there, big guy. It was only a joke." [Me]

"Then it was in very poor taste." Ark sat back down, but continued to glare at everyone.

"Hey, Duskle, why do you carry that staff around every where?" [Nagt'Kuv]

"This? This is no staff. This is something used to bring down creatures none of you can even begin to imagine."

"Right..." [Me]

"You don't believe me?"

"Well, it kinda looks impossible to use in combat."

"Really? What's the biggest thing your people have fought?"

"I don't know, dragons?"

"Huh. Well sand worms eat dragons. Literally. They're massive monsters that spring from the sands of the desert and swallow dragons whole, in mid air. When they land, they could crush entire cities and reshape the desert dunes under their might. Sand worms would wreak havoc on your kind."

"Uhh..."

"Hmph. Try fighting the Icidians, and I gaurentee you'll get your ass kicked." [Nagt'Kuv]

"Icidians?" [Sebastion]

"Right, the Icidians. Yeah, they... they're not that hard to kill. Maybe it'd help if you looked down once in a while." [Riley]

"What's an Icidian?" [Ark]

"Icidians are horse people, they're actually really stupid and clumsy, and can't count worth shit. More times than not, we've tricked them into giving us a lot more for a lot less." [Riley]

"Huh?" [Sebastion]

"What? It's a deal. They give us artifacts, we give them food. The things they give us are worth a lot more than ten times the food we give them!"

"That sounds hospitable." Duskle was being sarcastic and a couple of the others snickered.

"Yeah, why are so triumphant about it? They're giving you really valuable things for food." [Me]

"What? No! We're... We're tricking them. They think they're giving us something really really common and valueless for something that only they have!"

"Did it occur to you that maybe they think they're doing the same thing? Maybe they don't have the food you're giving them." [Ark]

"Oh... huh."

"No, those creatures have food. They eat us. They bite into us when we fight them, and they feast on our flesh as we try to kick them off. Those damnable creatures deserve to die." [Nagt'Kuv]

"Does everyone hate eachother in that part of the world?" [Me]

"I guess so." [Sebastion]

"Hey, I don't hate any of the Otters, and none of them hate me. Well, the Lords do, but that's different." [Riley]

"Lords?" [Duskle]

"Yeah. You guys don't use money, so you wouldn't get it."

"I just spent three days in your sickening society, I think I understand how it works." [Duskle]

"Fair enough. The Lords are the wealthiest people in all the land, they try to make sure that everyone else stays poor by taxing us, and then they use the taxes for good deeds to try to hide it from the blind and the ignorant why they're really taxing us."

"Wait, how many are there?" [Me]

"One, governing the whole country. He leads a counsel of sixth others, but they only control different aspects and portions of the taxing system. He can tax anyone, and use that money for anything. The others have to oblige by his rules, or he'll tax them so badly that a new Lord will rise to power."

"So, 'taxing', really means 'robbery'. Yeah, completely well structured society." [Nagt'Kuv]

"Hey, if I became a Lord, I'd expose the truth to everyone, and then I'd fix everything. I'd tax the rich and give it to the poor, and make sure everyone knows how fucked up Nathan is."

"Nathan?" [Sebastion]

"He's the leader of the Counsel."

"Oh."

"That's actually really dark and fucked up." [Duskle]

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can officially avoid Lifthraien from now until the end of time." [Me]

"Why were we even trying to get in there?!" [Nagt'Kuv]

"Hey, that's my home you're talking about!" [Riley]

"I don't care! That place is all kinds of wrong!" [Duskle]