chapter 5 waking in valyria (3)

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Note

I'll be adding pictures of places, people or other things in the paragraph to properly give you an idea on the appearance or battle scenes so keep your eyes on paragraph comments

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Myself and the rest leave the castle along with the guards, heading towards mage Aldin's tower for our lessons for the day, moving through the halls I see beautiful murals and carving depiction of our house and it's glory. It told stories of the battlefield and also the beginning of our power the tempest dragons we were blessed by the dragon gods that they and we're able to bond to the tempest dragon and were given it's blood to be one with them for generations, it was is easy to spot on the walls as it had four legs, the armor scale patterns and the wings coming out from the back instead of attached to the front limbs.

One thing to note is how it shows our house always trying to stop certain practice's the valyrians use, such as slavery and their dark magic. Not a singles stone used in construction or any resources we used are made by slaves, we where actively against such things but couldn't stop it as the rest of the dragon lord family's see it as cheap labour and a large work force to do their biding. So we did what we could we bought as many slaves as we could and set them free, gave them work and let some settle down in our land which was really large, as although we don't struggle for power our house is still the strongest in everything so even without asking we always get the lion's share or should I say dragons share hahaha

But still that's why they push onward with their ways, they know of our power as we always fight at the forefront but although we rarely use tempest dragons, our army is undoubtedly the strongest with our griffins knights which we refused sharing with the rest of the valyrian families and the dragon knights, we have the largest and strongest elite force in valyria, anyways they sought to equal themselves with us and since we don't actively suppress them they do what they do. Some might ask why not take the helm and force them into submission, well you have to understand the war will tear the freehold apart and we already have enemies even if we have more or less conquered the continent we can't afford to let weakness in our empire, they know that and we know that, beside even if one side wins it has to be complete destroying the other party as subduing is not really an option as these bastard are too head strong, take the slavery stuff for example when we brought up the fact that slavery is wrong before the gods and men alike they accused us of trying to limit the growth of the freehold and trying to limit them as well and denied our protest. Then another issue came up, bastardry if I could call it that, the valyrians believed they could live as they please so came up the problem of bastards roaming everywhere and looked down as nothing more than that, although it wasn't as bad as the way the seven religion made it to be in the future. Valyrian bastard still had standing in the world outside the freehold some managed to be put incharge of certain activities or locations but nothing much in the whole scheme of things we spoke for them but still we where told we can't force them to take responsibility, so we did what we could and screened for talents among the abandoned and put them in our army either the dragon knights depending on their talent and dedication or the griffin knights which are not far off but we allow the ones able to join the dragon knight to make a house name this way we had many dragon lord family's under us but not man as not to upset the balance too much, some were just dragon riders the other 39 houses refused to acknowledge them and still referred to them as bastard family's or scales meaning only looking like a dragon but not acknowledged which didn't quite sound original, some minor houses tried doing the same but got reproached by the rest, still some really talented bastards...ahem excuse me...still manage to become dragon riders but never allowed to make a house of their own the numbers were kept to a minimum. In a way they feared giving power to so many, they feared they might unite and take more power from their table and refused that, always keeping watchful eyes on them and degrading them as much as they could

It worked in a way but still some found their way to our house for a chance which we gave and always screened out ones with other motives. The amount of bast...ahem I mean valyrians we had that couldn't make it into the either unite where but into other fields like our navy unite, magic research unite and our deadly assassin's unite which was headed by my aunt as she got an interest in shadow magic so leading to The creation of the shadow legion at first it was a group of women but expanded at the request of my father to both men and women, they excel in information gathering, assassination they could even fight like knights if needed but they were the deadliest group in our army mastering shadow magic and some element magic. Of course the other families cut on or should I say we let them and once again they went into their pot of madness and created a ritual to enable them to change faces but it was never completed the side effect ranged from not being able to change back to their original face to not remembering themselves like a form of identity loss so they used it on slaves and formed a squad of their own but got bored as they just made it out as a side project they believe more in their dragons.(picture of shadow legion)

Feeling Someone tap my arm I turn to see Eliana looking at me

"What?"

"You have been staring at the walls since we stepped into the halls like it's your first time or something"

"Ah, well just admiring the history" I reply

"Well anyway now that we are of age to start learning magic properly what type of elemydo you think you would have more affinity " she asks

"Well I think all of them seeing as I am a genius" I rely with my famous pompous smile

"Genius ha! In what you've never beaten me in anything" reply's Eliana destroying my ego

Just you wait I'll..

"Oh and mother told me about your plot to use your superior physic or magic to beat me so as to keep the wins the way the already are we will stop sparing together" she says cutting of my thoughts

"Wha? What do you mean we'll stop sparing why"I asked

"Because I don't want to lose to a cheat like you" reply's Eliana with a pout

"But you..I..oh come on"I sigh in defeat as we make our way out the entrance and unto the carriage

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Our lessons with mage Aldin cover various areas such as magic, herbology, strategy, history, geography, administration. The are other we have been taught like normal stuff such as reading, writing, calculations e.t.c the calculations aren't that difficult especially when compared to what I still remember from my university days back at the engineering department, I even got a PhD in various other fields too so...heh

"Mmm brother when can we go see your dragon" asks branton

"Well that's after we are done with our lessons with mage aldin and training with uncle"I reply

"Well couldn't we skip uncle"ask my younger brother with enthusiasm thinking of mischievous ways to go see my dragon and evading or uncle

You see little branton here is more of a magical genius so his interest in swinging a weapon is abysmal so he always looks for a way to skip uncle's training so seeing the dragon as an excuse way not to out of a thing in his thoughts. Branton trains in short swords

"Well we both know it's not possible, besides it's been weeks since we last saw uncle and I'm sure he would like to see our progress so just have to deal with it"

"Brother is right branton uncle won't let you escape this time" Selina says as well

"So what should I do the "he asks looking defeated

"Well if it's was another occasion I would say you get mage aldin to keep you at the tower but as Selina said it's impossible now that uncle just came back"

The carriage comes to a stop, the doors are opened and I step out helping Eliana and my sister out while my brother hops out.

Looking at the tower it looked mystical and had this peaceful aura around it..truly a place for learning not a dark tower with Frankenstein like theme.( picture of Aldin's tower)