Rediscovery of ancient beings
Rediscovery of ancient beings
The whispers started in the Whispering Cairns, ancient burial mounds swallowed by the Shifting Sands of Xylos. Not whispers of wind through cracked stone, but whispers of thought, raw and potent, felt rather than heard. They spoke of slumber broken, of scales glittering under a forgotten sun, of power stirring in the dust. Elara, a scholar ostracized for her obsession with Xylos’s lost history, felt them first, a tremor in her very soul.
Elara wasn’t a warrior, but she possessed an uncanny ability to decipher the glyphs etched on the Cairns’ crumbling surfaces. These weren’t the crude markings of a primitive people, but elegant, spiralling scripts hinting at a civilization far beyond Xylos’ current understanding. The whispers grew stronger, guiding her towards a hidden entrance, revealed only when the sands shifted in a specific lunar pattern – a pattern only Elara, through her meticulous study, had deciphered.
The entrance led to a vast cavern, lit by phosphorescent fungi clinging to colossal, obsidian columns. In the heart of the cavern, coiled around a pulsing geode of amethyst, lay the Drakon. Not the skeletal remains Elara expected, but a creature of breathtaking magnificence. Its scales, the colour of a twilight sky, shimmered with an inner light. Its eyes, vast and intelligent, opened slowly, fixing on Elara with an unnerving intensity.
The Drakon were not merely legends, stories told to frighten children. They were the ancient guardians of Xylos, beings of immense power, thought long extinct. This one, she sensed, was not alone. The whispers intensified, multiplying, a chorus of awakening minds. More Drakon, vast and magnificent, stirred from their millennia-long slumber.
Initially, fear paralyzed Elara. These were not benevolent creatures; their presence radiated an ancient, untamed power that could crumble kingdoms. But then, she saw it – not malice in their eyes, but… curiosity. A weariness, too, a sadness born of forgotten epochs.
The Drakon’s voice, when it finally came, resonated not through the air, but directly within Elara’s mind, a tide of ancient knowledge washing over her. They spoke of a catastrophic war, a betrayal that plunged Xylos into darkness and forced them into a magical sleep, a slumber from which they were now emerging. They weren’t here for conquest, they said, but for understanding. For rediscovering a world they had once protected.
The news of the Drakon’s awakening spread like wildfire. Fear morphed into awe, then into desperate hope and, finally, into a terrifying conflict. Some, blinded by fear and ambition, sought to weaponize the Drakon’s power, to control the ancient beings for their own gain. Others, like Elara, saw the awakening as a chance for Xylos to heal, to rebuild, guided by the wisdom of a civilization far older than their own.
Elara, now thrust into a leadership role she never sought, became a bridge between the two worlds. She had to convince the human kingdoms and the awakened Drakon to find a way to co-exist, to forge a new era built not on conquest, but on understanding, a fragile peace hanging precariously in the balance, held together by the whispers of the past and the uncertain hope of the future. The rediscovery of the Drakon had not only changed Xylos forever; it had forced humanity to confront its own past and question its future in a way no one could have ever imagined.
