These events have killed me! At last they are at peace and finally Zothra participated in an English language training program and befriended the staff and asked to be trained as a zoo attendant and afterwards to start veterinary studies.

Lothjar, he wanted to become a cook and followed a program to become a restaurant chef. He started as an apprentice at the zoo by cooking the rations for the residents. A bright future.

They discovered their passions with the apprenticeship.

To be emancipated, they had to take a language exam in English and pass psychology tests to prove that they had a sense of right and wrong and that passers-by were not snacks.

I had other problems.

I was walking around the base while the others were forming and my intuition was screaming in my ears that something was wrong. Something was wrong.

I felt a rage against myself and dragons in general, but it was mostly against me and also against my sister.

In my free time I practiced mystical arts and magic with the grimoires I inherited from Mandrake.

One of the spells, hard to master, was a variant of mirror image, an illusion spell.

The spell: changing appearance. Also a very draconian spell. For example, one dragon could pretend to be another. Very useful.

I was in human mode. My hormonal and toxicity issues have been largely resolved. So the toxins and side effects that affected me were eliminated by synthesizing special drugs but I must not abuse them. I still have to keep my dragon shape as much as possible.

I was feeling oppressed until I received a request to summon a certain Ricardo, a paleontologist of Guatemalan origin.

He was on Luna1 and wanted to meet me as I was in charge of World's dragons.

I went to the large park with trees where the dragons rested and hunted more for sport than for necessity and although we have adapted to modern comfort, we keep our traditions and habits.

It's a bit as if we want to keep a country life of hunter with our huts and caves but, back to the social life, we have the modern comfort of the 23rd century.

But let's face it, we love modern comfort like people do now and if we told Razorback to go back to the jungle he would have a nervous breakdown like a teenager with a confiscated game console!

I arrive in a kind of barn made of natural wood with the scent of an exotic park and the pleasant essences of nature.

There is straw in the barn, covered with skins sewn together with strong leather straps, a technique used by the dragons during the covering.

There was also a bar, country style tables and chairs.

It was very comfortable but at the same time nostalgic for Arcadia.

I sat at a table and waited for my visitor.

A small, dark-skinned man, with short, medium-short hair and a moustache, dressed in a white shirt and eternal black trousers and holding a leather briefcase, came and waved at me.

I got up and met him.

Mr. Ricardo! Come, it's this way.

"Eva, Longhorn, Vulcanus commander and project leader of the Outland project. " I said to him as I presented my card.

"Oh, I see you're keeping up these old traditions, but I can't help but admire your gestures."

He also presented me with his map and it was inscribed on its curator, archaeologist and exo-archaeologist.

"Exo-archaeologist, first time I've ever heard that word. Could you explain it to me?"

"Oh, it's just a fancy name for explorer of ruins and curator of alien cultures."

"I think you look lovely, Madam Commander! And I want to thank you for the warm welcome you've given me."

" Take a seat in there!

Would you take anything? Would you like some coffee?"

"I see you're a connoisseur! In my home country, coffee growing is a national treasure. We produce some of the best coffee strains in the world.

But let me get to the point.

I'm here on a mission because the government tasked me to be an outside observer of the Outland project, especially since you use strange creatures called dragons."

"Yes, I love those creatures and they do it to me. They're very intelligent and having access to our knowledge and our culture has allowed them to discover hidden talents. Just because of their size, they're like us humans. A little wilder, but we humans like to jog, they like to hunt and fly."

"But since you seem like an intelligent and open-minded person, I must confess I have another mission as well. (Ricardo)

It comes from my people, which I represent.

I am a leader, a sage of the Mayan culture. My lineage is directly linked to the princes and princesses of that empire that died out almost a thousand years ago.

You may have heard about the end of the world in the year 2000 and other nonsense from 200 years ago now...

This is the ancestral map of the calendar. The one that has been presented to the public for centuries is a pale, uncluttered copy from which essential details have been removed.

In fact, the calendar is wrong. Tradition and knowledge has been handed down in our order for centuries and we are the guardians of the Quetzalcoatl, the great dragon.

Our knowledge comes directly from the lost Atlantis. The Egyptians are also the descendants, the survivors. They, too, had a disk like this one.

But it's only vaguely described. And it's part of a prophecy.

The two discs must fit together.

But the perversity of the Black Pharaoh corrupted the disc and they slaughtered millions of souls in order to call the World Devourer.

He has visited our world in the past and it almost exterminated mankind. A great ice age ensued and only 14 families managed to make it through this terrible ice age. I am talking about an event that took place between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago, the Cimmerian Age.

They almost succeeded and the prophecy tells us that the apocalypse would happen on our date in fact and therefore now and that it would begin with the return of the great scales.

So the dragons!

Our ancestors made counter-sacrifices by offering the hearts of the bravest men to the sun god, the deity of light, the equivalent of Amaterasu.

But when he couldn't come, the devouring god would have laid his eggs in this world until the big scaly ones returned to hatch them and do his dirty work for him."

I'd like to ask the dragons about these discs."