Speaker Andal

On the Tarlonnd Continent, in Agondor, the dragon city, Blue Dragon Melitapornia and White Dragon Noreta walked through the extraordinarily spacious corridors of the grand palace where the Council resided, heading toward the room of the Council's highest speaker.

The magnificent ancient palace had stood upon this land unchanged for ten thousand years. Inside lay sights Melita had known since childhood: solemn golden pillars supporting intricate arch beams, their crisscrossing structure resembling the skeleton of some enormous creature. Domes of Grey Crystal Rock covered the arches, every section of the ceiling carved with elaborate patterns depicting memorable moments from dragon history. Along both sides of the corridor, crystal-like translucent synthetic material draped down from the pillars, specks of light moving and appearing across those crystal membranes, ever waiting for visitors to read and interact with them.

Perhaps due to the Sacred Festival, there were few visitors in the Council palace. Apart from Melita and Noreta, only a handful of staff moved through the vast corridor. There were more automatically operating service machines than people. These "Iron Servants," clad in pale gold or light blue shells, sped along on spinning rings of light, silently traveling between doors and pillars along the energy lines in the floor. They maintained the palace's complex, ancient technological facilities or carried out other orders from "Omega," bustling endlessly as though they never had a moment of leisure.

Intricate, exquisite, solemn enough to make one's heart tremble, and advanced beyond belief.

Yet beneath that exquisite shell lay a technological mire that had long sunk into decline.

Melita raised her head, looking at the complex patterns on the dome and the energy conduits hidden among them. She could not help muttering, "The biggest upgrade they ever made was changing the patterns."

Technology had reached its limit. A wall