Prologue: Some clues about history

"Time is like a book. A book with millions if not billions of pages, where every single event that has ever happened since the beginning of time is meticulously written. But unfortunately, this book isn't a manual in good condition, but many of the pages are torn and others are eaten by mice. The pages close to the ending, since they have had less time to deteriorate, are still legible even if damaged; but the more we leaf through it, the more we go back towards the beginning, the more we can find only a few fragments still decipherable. Everything else has been erased forever, and we can only speculate about what happened in those moments, and we may never even know. This, my dear students, is how the study of the history of our world works: even if we have a clear representation of what has happened in the last millennia, the more we look at the past, the more it becomes clouded and incomprehensible to us. We are even unable to establish correctly when the world began to exist or exactly how much it existed. We can occasionally find a few fragments of this distant past, but most of it is closed to us. But this is no reason to be discouraged: even if we can only find scattered pieces, we can put them together to get an idea of ​​what the past was like, what events marked it, and what brought the world to be as it is today"

There were certain subjects that Maldor was required to teach at the Academy of Magic, and one of them was the history of magic. However, despite the name, it was mostly just history, since many magical events were connected to other non-magical events, and therefore those too had to be studied. Therefore, to avoid too much confusion, Maldor had simply decided to speak of historical events in a general way, obviously dwelling more specifically on the great mages who had marked their name in history. She had assimilated all that knowledge thanks to the numerous books her sisters had bought her and she had integrated it with that of the textbooks she read in the academy library, so now she had a general picture of how the history of the world had unfolded, or at least of what little newcomers knew.

"We can divide the past into six main periods. These periods were marked by the events that shaped them, and while it is difficult to correctly tell when one begins and ends, we can still get a general idea of ​​them" she continued to explain to the students as with chalk she began to draw a line on the blackboard. "The first of these periods is called the First Age, or the Age of the Dragons. We don't know exactly when it began, or if there had been anything else before it; generally, today we tend to consider everything that took place as part of the First Age before 700,000 years ago. Consequently, the First Age goes from 700,000 years ago to an indefinite period of time, which we may never be able to establish correctly. During this time, dragons were the supreme rulers of our world. And then, it came the Second Age"

Maldor's hand shook slightly as she spoke, but she managed to hide it well. "The Second Age, also known as the Great Death, extends from 700,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. During this period a catastrophe of colossal dimensions occurred, the most terrible known to us, which would make a volcano or a tsunami look like nothing more than simple flames or waves. During these 670,000 years, our world was a hostile and inhospitable place, causing the disappearance of almost all fauna and flora. But fortunately, this catastrophe, however long, came to an end, and thus our ancestors entered the Third Age"

Maldor drew a large dot on the line he had drawn, as if to symbolize that at that point in time the world had undergone a change. "The Third Age, also known as the Age of the Gods, is 30,000 to 20,000 years ago. During this time, the gods descended upon the world for the first time and helped rebuild what had been destroyed, created all the various races and they led for thousands of years, allowing them to establish themselves as the new rulers of the world. The gods were also responsible for the defeat and death of the many surviving dragons, which resulted in this species that once ruled the world retreating to remote areas"

Maldor remembered how she'd reacted when she found out it. She and the others, especially Haku, had always assumed that the gods were hostile to dragons, but they had never confirmed it. But now they knew for sure that the gods had been responsible for the deaths of many dragons in the past. "At the end of the Third Age, the gods abandoned the earthly world and settled in their divine realms, and interfered less and less with the lives of mortals, preferring to entrust their words to priests and their powers to legendary levels. Then followed the Fourth Age, known as the Barbaric Age. During this period, most of the races, deprived of the guidance of the gods, were reduced to living a primitive existence, often fighting with each other and making ignorance and incivility predominate. This period is from 20,000 years ago to about 12,000 years ago. Fortunately, after this dark time, the true civilization arose among mortals, and the Fifth Age began"

Maldor drew another dot on the line she had drawn, indicating another major change. "The Fifth Age saw the laughter of the elves, and for this reason it is known as the Age of the Elves, and lasted from 12,000 to about 5,000 years ago. While almost all other races had maintained a primitive way of life, in fact, the elves formed a great civilization, which developed into kingdoms and then into empires. The elves conquered and enslaved other races, or turned them into servant nations. This was an age dotted with many different nations, heroes, kings and conquerors, as well as some of the most great magical discoveries still written in the books that you study. However, even the glorious civilization of the elves met its end, it is difficult to establish what caused their decline, but the most widespread idea is that the elves had become increasingly arrogant, to the point that many of them launched a ruthless crusade against all other races since they considered themselves the only true inhabitants of the world, and in doing so they also entered into conflict with the few remaining dragons; even if they killed many, the dragons devastated their nations anyway, weakening them more and more. Furthermore, we have evidence that during this period the elves were plagued by several wars, both civil and with other nations. Due to their relatively low birth rate, they were unable to maintain a balance between those who were born and those who died, marking a dramatic decline in their population. A final rebellion by the other races dealt the final blow: the elf civilization collapsed completely, and the few surviving elves built much smaller kingdoms, while the other races took control of their old empires. And it is here, 5,000 years ago, with the end of the dominion of the elves, that we finally enter the Sixth Era, the Current Era, the one we are experiencing today. This era saw the laughter of two races in particular, the humans and the beastmen, who took over from the elves as hegemons of the world; although many other races have obtained an important place, these two are currently the most numerous and successfull, and as we will see in the next lessons, they have inherited much of the culture of the elves, in architecture, music, art and, of course, in magic"

Maldor spoke a few words and the line she had drawn on the blackboard came alive and hovered in the air as if it were an image reflected in water; the students saw it colored in six different colors representing each era, and figures symbolizing it appeared over each historical period: a dragon, a skull, a god, a barbarian, an elf and finally a human. "In the course of the next lessons we will talk about each of these ages, and in particular we will focus on the Fifth and Sixth Ages. Today we will discuss the First Age, the Age of the Dragons"

All other periods vanished, and only the line representing the First Age remained. "Unfortunately, this is the historical period we know the least about. As I have already told you, we do not know exactly when it began, but only when it ended. However, thanks to some findings, we know that it was a very, very long. Some scholars have in fact found dragon fossils dating back over five million years ago, demonstrating how ancient this species is and how long it has reigned over the world. Furthermore, the world was very different when these creatures reigned: most of today's life forms didn't exist, and instead the dominant animals were the dracomorphs. Thanks to the fossils and the remains left by dragons, we are able to partially reconstruct what the face of the world must have looked like during that era, and the dominant idea now is that it was a hotter and more humid place than today, covered in great forests and where even the continents had a different shape; some ancient artifacts left by dragons in fact show maps, which illustrate how the shape of the emerged lands has changed over time, passing from a single large continent to three different continents. This phenomenon is still largely unknown today, and we don't know if it happened quickly or if it was a slow process. As you can see, then, we can only speculate how different the world was in that era. And also many of the remains we have at our disposal are often fallacious, since they consist only of teeth, in the case of now extinct animals, or a few fragments of sculptures or murals in the case of what dragons had built, and very often we found ourselves making great mistakes in interpreting these signs". Maldor waved her hand, and the image of a huge snake appeared in the middle of the class, making some students cringe. "For example, when the elf Erus Avalor first found the skull of a jormungardr, an extinct dracomorph that would have made modern basilisks look like small worms, he imagined a gigantic and stupid beast that necessarily had to live in the sea to be able to support its enormous bulk; but not even a century later another elf, Ilun Marosk, demonstrated instead that the jormungardr was a terrestrial creature. And about other five centuries later, a human named Efialte Olteras analyzing the braincase deduced that the jormungardr had a large brain, and that it had excellent vision, hearing and sense of smell, and was certainly not a stupid animal. And still two centuries later, the discovery of new fossils by the minotaur Rofus Terast demonstrated that the jormungardr was a loving parent and was able to develop complex interpersonal relationships between members of the same species. Consequently, probably this monstrous and enormous dracomorph was just a pleasant fellow that spent a good part of its time playing, lying around, cuddling or impressing potential mates"

The students gasped as they watched the image of the jormungardr transform from a hissing, angry beast to an adorable parent who wrapped its enormous tail around its children. It seemed impossible to imagine that such a creature could show such affection, yet… "As you can see, reconstructing the past isn't easy at all. Just talking about the ancient creatures of the world we have made many mistakes. And when we talk about the now vanished civilization dragons we have committed even more. For a long time, seeing how dragons are today, we imagined the First Age as an era governed by bestiality and brutality, where only the law of the strongest reigned and there was no room for no form of civilization. But then, we discovered the existence of what we collectively call 'dungeons', which are constructions left by dragons in ancient times". Maldor waved her hand, and images of various forts, palaces, and ornately decorated rooms appeared before the students. "The presence of the dungeons proves that the dragons possessed an extremely complex civilization. Most of the dungeons today are hidden underground due to the long passage of time, and are often damaged, but still can testify to the existence of a golden age of the dragons. Looking at these constructions, we can see how dragons possessed great architectural knowledge, and not only: exploring the interior, we often find statues and drawings that also demonstrate great artistic skills. Inside the dungeons there are many precious materials, suggesting the existence of some form of trade, and we can also find parchment and tablets that not only prove that dragons could write and kept records, but also provide us with some information about the past. We know, for example, that about a million years ago there was a great empire in what is now the south of the continent, while instead 800,000 years ago in the mountain range that is now called the Afarelia Mountains there was a small kingdom of dragons who built their homes on the tops of the mountains thanks to a complex system of scaffolding and counterweights"

Several images followed as Maldor spoke, showing the students dragons building perch-like houses on mountains. While the students found all this fascinating, Maldor almost cried when she first learned of it. That knowledge, fragmented as it was, was a window into the past of her kind, and it was fascinating to discover that dragons hadn't always been vicious war machines. "Still, despite the existence of these finds, we have very little information about what the First Age was like. Sadly, most of the dragon buildings have been erased by time, and many of the surviving ones still await to be discovery. Furthermore, exploring a dungeon isn't easy at all: since dragons have inhabited those places for a long time, a large amount of magical energy is trapped inside, and this causes that once the dungeons are unearthed it attracts all the monsters in the vicinity that then mutate inside it into dangerous creatures that fiercely defend it. There are also many traps and pitfalls that make exploration even more difficult. And finally, unfortunately many of those who have ventured into dungeons have preferred looting what it contained instead of studying it, further helping to destroy our window into the past. All we have are fragments, and we can only speculate on what the dragon civilization was like. Based on the older dungeons, we can say with certainty that such a civilization must have lasted over 300,000 years before being wiped out by the Great Death, so about ten times as long as the new races as we humans existed, and therefore it is fair to wonder... what extraordinary things could the dragons have achieved in all this time?"

Maldor's eyes lit up, and it almost seemed like she was daydreaming as she spoke. "Perhaps there once existed a kingdom of dragons that saw the eldest and mightiest among them rule in a council, or perhaps they elected a king to lead them. Perhaps there were dragon leaders who fought fierce wars and were then remembered with strange funerals in which the dead body was thrown into the air and then disintegrated by the powers of their familiars. Perhaps there were dragon poets who recited poems both with their roars and with their body language. Perhaps there were artists who used their powers to create magnificent light shows in the sky for the whole town to admire. Perhaps they had sports, maybe based on who could fly fastest or who caught the prey first. Perhaps they had religions, worshiping the sun, the moon and the stars, or perhaps their own kings as if they were gods. Perhaps they had their own form of agriculture and ranching, or perhaps they preferred to hunt as they did when they weren't civilized. Perhaps among the dragons there were countless explorers, inventors, heroes, cowards, tyrants, farsighted kings, teachers of morals, artists, philosophers... just like us today. How amazing and incredible this civilization must have been, and what a loss it is to us that we cannot experience it first-hand, and that there is so much that we probably never know about them..."

Then, suddenly, Maldor stopped. She realized she had gotten too carried away. She couldn't show that she was so enthusiastic about that idea. "In short, we can only imagine how incredible their civilization was, and it is indeed a great loss for us that there is still so much that we will probably never know about it. But there is an important lesson we can learn from the sad fate of the dragons: the continuation of a civilization, any civilization, is not guaranteed. Over the past 30,000 years we humans have slowly achieved great heights to become a dominant power in the world, but nonetheless our future and long-term survival aren't a given. If we won't be careful, our civilization could end in an instant, just like the Age of the Dragons ended. We must keep this important lesson to heart, and always remember it; and with much luck and the blessing of the gods, our journey will continue for a long, long time to come"

Even though her speech wasn't technically intended to inspire anyone, the students still started clapping. Maldor accepted the applause with great pleasure before moving on to the next topic of the lesson.