It had taken him much longer to notice than it should have. Sargonnas had not turned his eyes towards the Dragon Isles in a while – not since those weaklings had first fled there. He had not bothered with them after that. He knew they would come to his service, eventually; they had no where else to go.

But he had not noticed when the anomaly first appeared. He should have, though. Perhaps he didn't because it was so far away from where he had been currently looking. Perhaps because Mishakal was visiting the Mortal at Misty Isle and the gods tended to look away when she did. They would rather forget about the Mortal – he was a reminder of a time that was no more, and soon he would be gone for good.

But why hadn't she noticed it?

When Sargonnas first spotted it, it was a pulsating green blob at the edge of his vision. He looked towards it, and was annoyed when it tried to stay out of his line of sight. He focused on it, and forced it to stay – for it was just mortal magic; it could not escape his notice for long – and was surprised to see what it was.

A gateway. A gateway made of dragon-magic. Both Takhi – no, his children's magic, and the Mortal's children.

Sargonnas was startled at first, and then he quickly angered. Were they trying to escape? The Immortal must have helped them! He reached out to the swirling anomaly, intending to halt their escape and to see where they were fleeing. Sargonnas was surprised when his hand slowed slightly – he could not see what was blocking his hand. Whatever it was, it quickly gave way under his might, and he closed his fingers around the offensive green spot...

…only to have it close and disappear within his grasp.

Sargonnas roared out in a fit of rage, and quickly called the others to him. Those of the Dark rushed to his call, while those who were Neutral took their time. Those of the Light sauntered over slowly, wondering what business he wanted with them. Last to arrive was Zivilyn, who was looking quite annoyed at the interruption.

"What is it?" the Prince of Lies asked.

Sargonnas turned his eyes to Hiddukel, seething in rage. "They have escaped!" He jabbed his finger towards the Isles, and it took a moment for all in attendance to catch on to his meaning. The friendship forming between the dragons held interest in them all – if only to see if the dragons would choose a side in the coming war.

"The Immortal with them?" Hiddukel turned his sight to the Isles, only to find her gone, as well.

Gilean looked exasperated. "What difference does it make? Others have left, before."

Hiddukel cried out in anger, "She cannot escape! She has not paid her debt completely!"

"I daresay she'll continue to pay, even if you are not there to collect," Nuitari spoke quietly from where he stood with Solinari and Lunitari. The gods of magic had been offended when Hiddukel had stripped the Immortal of her magic – after all, they felt, it was their decision on who to bless with the power of High Sorcery. But they had conceded, eventually, that those who gambled and lost to Hiddukel ultimately were at his mercy – or lack thereof. It was a matter out of their hands, but they had been no less embittered by it.

Sargonnas commanded the gods' attention back to him – old arguments did not need to be brought up now. "It matters," he glanced at Gilean, "because it means they have slighted us. The Mortal must have helped them."

"What could he possibly do?" Majere looked as annoyed as Zivilyn and Gilean.

"You!" Sargonnas ignored the question and pointed at Mishakal. "You were nearby – how could you not notice?"

She shrugged. "Their affairs mean nothing to me."

Kiri-Jolith looked at her incredulously and asked, "Mother, what do you mean? They abandoned this world and us! How can you not be offended?"

Sargonnas was pleased that Kiri-Jolith agreed with him. The Sword of Justice currently commanded control over the gods of the Light, and they would listen to him.

"And you!" The God of Vengeance rounded on Zivilyn. "How could you not see this coming?"

"I fail to see how it concerns me," the God of Wisdom snapped, looking at Sargonnas in disgust. Gilean frowned at Zivilyn – the gods of Neutrality were not to choose sides, unless they did so as one. It was odd behavior from Zivilyn, who normally worked closely with Gilean.

"Fair enough," Gilean said quietly, staring intently at Zivilyn. "But where did they go?"

Zivilyn looked far ahead and he looked far behind. He looked above and below and all around. He turned to Gilean and shrugged nonchalantly.

"I do not know."

Sargonnas watched the two curiously. This was a peculiar development – Zivilyn always sided closely with Gilean, as the keepers of wisdom and knowledge, respectively. It appeared that both the gods of Light and Neutrality were fragmented. This could prove to be a great advantage for the Dark, who were never truly a united front, but nevertheless were working together while it appeared the others were not.

"Well, since we do not know where they went – not that it should particularly concern any of us to begin with – then I believe this is no longer a matter to discuss," Majere said irritably.

"We can't just let them go!" Hiddukel cried out.

"Then go find them," Chislev muttered, rolling her eyes. She began to make her descent to the world below, followed closely by her consort, Zivilyn. The other gods began to disperse, and Sargonnas watched them head off, his rage over the dragons forgotten. It appeared there would be more than two sides to this war.

The gods of Darkness stood together, which the exception of Nuitari, who went back to his moon. The gods of magic had been secluding themselves more and more lately, not working with their respective sides.

"This is an interesting development," Morgion spoke from beside Sargonnas. The others nodded in agreement. "It appears that Mishakal, Majere, Zivilyn and Chislev have…joined forces."

"Yes, indeed. I wonder what they are planning," Sargonnas mused.

"Do you think it includes the Mortal?" Zebiom asked.

"Majere said it himself, what could he possibly do?" Morgion wondered.

"Lead an army," Sargonnas growled.

"But what about the dragons and the Immortal?" Hiddukel asked.

"Let them go for now." Sargonnas looked warningly at Hiddukel. "We shall look for them later, and get our revenge. But we have the advantage now – let us not waste it."

The others agreed. With the forces of Light and Neutrality fragmented, Krynn would be theirs.

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"Okay," Kali muttered, surveying the assembled humans before her. "This isn't going to work."

They looked at themselves in confusion. They couldn't figure out what she saw wrong with them.

"With the exception of Folhala and Ursanth, you all look…well, amazing," Kali chuckled. She was trying to teach them to not be stunningly beautiful when they transformed. "And you two," she pointed at the two Greens, "look absolutely revolting, and will draw just as much attention as the rest of them."

The old man and woman standing in the sea of perfect, lean-figured bodies grinned widely at her, displaying their rotted-out black teeth. Kali cried out in disgust, and they laughed - a hacking, wheezing sound which made the others around them cringe.

"Can you two stop fooling around, and show them a proper form?" Kali glared at the two, who quickly stopped laughing. A moment later, pock-marked skin started to clear and smooth, hair re-grew from balding scalps, and hunched postures straightened. It was a startlingly improvement, but not too good of one. They looked like – well, normal humans, not half-gods who decided to grace the world with their presence.

"You see!" Kali beamed at the two. "That is how normal people look."

"I don't see the difference," one of the dragons said – she couldn't tell who was who in their current forms. "They have everything else that we do."

"Yes, but look at the details of them. Their facial features aren't symmetrical, their bodies have a bit of fat on them and they're about the right height. Their hair and eyes are perfectly normal colours – not gold or purple or silver, or – gods, Vlam – red."

"I thought you said red was fine!" Vlam grumbled at her.

"Red hair is fine, Vlam. Not red eyes," she scolded him. "The opposite goes for green. Green eyes are fine, but not hair, Gladyli." She squinted at the offending green dragon, who quickly changed her hair colour to a dull brown under the woman's scowl.

"Good. Let's change colours first, all of you, and then work on body and facial features. You should all settle on one or two forms to use when you need to – and you shouldn't all be the same age, either," she tsked.

Kali began to work with them, one by one, trying to mold them into human forms that would be less noticeable. The Silvers had the hardest time with it, for some reason she couldn't fathom, but eventually forty-eight normal-looking people of all ages stood before her.

"Better!" She smiled proudly at them. "Much, much better."

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They had set up "camp" – as Kali termed it – in the valley in which they had first entered from Krynn. There was a small lake in the center – just big enough to take a swim in if they felt like it – with a stream running out from it and down into the hills below. Most of the time, the dragons laid about the lake and mountain-sides, sunning themselves. Kali had found a small cave from which she had unpacked some of her belongings – with the help of Khindris – and set up a fire-pit outside.

There weren't any humans about, as far as they could see when they went hunting. The metallics, who had never had any meat except fish and occasionally poultry, quickly discovered that they loved the red deer that populated the forests below the mountains. The chromes, who had only had elk and bison before they left Ansalon for the Dragon Isles, also agreed that it was the best meat they had ever had. Kali seemed surprised, though, that they never really ate more than once a week, and that one of the large animals would feed, on average, five dragons. She wondered how they had grown at such startlingly fast rates on so little food.

Kali wouldn't let them explore any more area than they had, which frustrated Valtrex to no end, explaining that she was afraid they would be spotted. He was currently sulking atop one of the higher mountains that framed their little valley, nestled in the snow. The clouds that day were particularly thick, making visibility hard. Normally, he could see for miles around, and would long to go explore. But today, he wasn't even able to see anything, so instead, he sulked. None of the other Silvers seemed too bothered by it, and played with the Whites in the snow. Occasionally, Tyberis would come up and join the other dragons at these heights, but the others – including Kali – always complained it was too cold for them. Valtrex couldn't fathom why – it was perfect.

He spotted the Blue flying up to join him, and moved, making room for him on the ledge which he currently occupied. The blue dragon settled down beside him, and Valtrex could immediately tell he was excited about something.

"What is it?" the Silver asked.

Tyberis glanced around furtively and dropped his head near Valtrex's. Valtrex frowned and tilted his head to listen.

"Kali is going to let me go explore with her, later," the Blue whispered.

"What!" Valtrex exclaimed, and was quickly shushed by Tyberis, who looked at the other dragons in concern, but none of them were paying attention.

"Why you?" Valtrex was slightly wounded that Kali would take Tyberis instead of him.

"She said it was because of my colour – I would be less easily seen if we lost the cloud cover," Tyberis explained. Valtrex knew it made sense, but he was no less offended.

"I wish I could go," he whined.

"I know, and I told her," the Blue said in an apologetic tone. "She said that if the clouds were thicker, she'd take you along, too. But keep quiet about it, okay? No one is supposed to know."

Valtrex nodded, put out.

"We're going to leave soon – going to act like we're going to go hunting," Tyberis said. The Blue glanced around at the others again and lowered his voice, "Perhaps, you know, you could act like you're going hunting, too. You know her eyesight isn't as good as ours – you could just hang back a little, she'd never know."

Valtrex looked at his friend, who was grinning, and he laughed, "A bit devious for me, but I'm not above it."

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'Ah good, farmland,' she thought to Tyberis. It was a great relief not to have to shout at him, like most dragon-riders did. 'A town should be nearby, then.'

They had flown away from their valley into the plains, but hadn't found very many signs of human life. It had taken an hour, but they finally found some farmland, promising a town nearby. But that town never showed up. There was the occasional house or small collection of buildings – they were probably villages - too small to successfully blend in as strangers. Graveled roads cut up the land, and occasionally, there would be a strange road consisting of two metal bars laid side-by-side. Kali never saw any vehicles upon it, and wondered what it was for. She directed Tyberis to start following the graveled roads when he could, and eventually they came upon a much larger town. Kali was surprised at its size – bigger than what she had been expecting, but she supposed the bigger it was, the better.

Her plan of action was to infiltrate the town as much as she could – hang around the taverns and collect information, once she had learned the language. She knew she would have to take a couple of dragons along with her – dragons tended to pick up languages extremely quickly, and through the mind-link, she could also learn it much faster from them. It would also be useful to have them cast invisibility spells until she felt comfortable enough to begin to appear in person.

She hoped to eventually establish a human residence somewhere near a city, and visit libraries to learn as much as she could about this race and their cultures. She was indecisive about whether or not to let the dragons let their presence be known, though she would prefer them not to. The last thing the dragons needed was to be viewed as a threat and hunted down – though she doubted these humans could harm them, it would be terribly inconvenient.

Perhaps they could find land somewhere that the humans hadn't claimed yet. After all, it was an entire world. There was no way that these humans had explored it fully yet – the races of Ansalon barely knew anything of Taladas, yet alone the lands on the other side of Krynn.

'What's that black smoke?'Tyberis asked her, suddenly. Kali had just assumed it was a fire when she had first spotted it, but upon closer inspection, she saw it was being funneled out of giant tubes that were jutting out of the top of one of the larger buildings.

'I don't know,' she thought, frowning. 'It's obviously from some fire – but if it's being controlled like that…hmmm…it could possibly be a forge of some sort,' she reasoned. She was surprised at the level of industrialization if that was true. She remembered some of the devices she had spotted through her colleague's portal when he had found this world – but they were small, personal inventions. Not something that would be produced on a large scale. She wondered how much time had passed since their discovery of this world. It had been nearly five-hundred years ago to her, but time passed differently between worlds. Time could've progressed only a few days since then – or perhaps a few millennia. She was just thankful it couldn't go backwards.

'Look, Kali! Another town!' Tyberis exclaimed. Kali looked around, but she couldn't see what the dragon was talking about.

'Which direction?' she asked.

The blue dragon wheeled slightly to his right. 'There, ahead of us.'

'I can't see as far as you, Tyberis. But let's start heading that way, then.' She was surprised that there would be another town so close to this one. It seemed large enough to be supported by the farmland around it – too large, in fact. As they flew, Kali noticed the number of roads below them to converge – and she saw a considerable amount of traffic on them. There were a number of wagons and some carriages. She was relieved to see that they had horses, as well as mules and oxen.

But then something caught her eye – an open wagon traveling down the road, going only slightly faster than the other vehicles, which pulled over to let it pass. There was nothing exceptional about the wagon itself, except that it gleamed like it was made of metal. What was exceptional about it was the fact that it didn't appear to be pulled by any team of livestock – nothing at all. Kali was intrigued by it – was it magical? They had never seen any evidence of magic when they had first seen this world, but it had by no means given them a complete view of the society.

Most of the horses seemed frightened by the vehicle as it passed them by, though the other animals didn't seem to care. Horses were normally wary of all things magical, which made Kali think it was, but this thing seemed to excrete smoke from its back end, which didn't make any sense to Kali. There would be no reason for a magical device to produce smoke.

Then she remembered her last visit to Mount Nevermind. The gnomes there had babbled on and on about a steam engine, which would allow them to propel vehicles without the use of livestock. Gnomes could hardly ever make their inventions actually work, so Kali had at the time dismissed the idea. But perhaps these humans could succeed where the gnomes had seemingly been cursed to fail. Though it wasn't steam coming out of the vehicle, she reasoned that perhaps the humans had a different design.

Suddenly, Tyberis jerked under her as a loud whistle cut through the air, and she crouched on his back, clutching his mane until he resettled. Kali looked about for the source of the piercing sound, and quickly saw another vehicle to her left, speeding along one of the strangle metal-bar roads. Black smoke billowed from the top of it, and like the metal wagon, was not drawn by horses. In fact, it was going much faster than any horse could hope to go – though Tyberis could still out-fly it. The vehicle was rushing in the direction they were flying, so Kali made Tyberis slow down so she could study it.

The vehicle was long – a series of connected wagons – which followed the metal bars precisely. The front vehicle seemed to be pulling the others, which surprised Kali, and made her wonder how fast it could go without its load. The wagon directly behind the first was full of black rocks, and frequently, Kali spied a man that walked between the two and carried a shovel-full of the black rocks back with him. The entire contraption fascinated her, but Tyberis complained that the sound it made occasionally hurt his ears, so Kali let him pull up and follow at a distance.

They came upon another town – much larger than the first – from which a hubbub of graveled and metal-bar roads came together. There were more of the buildings that spewed plumes of black smoke into the air, and the stench made Tyberis steer clear of the town. They continued to follow the fast vehicle, but she eventually made Tyberis fly ahead of it, gaining altitude, as it was going too slow for her and she wanted to see what else was up ahead.

They followed the roads, watching the farmland around them become denser and denser. There were no forests or open plains – just farmland and town after town. Kali was surprised at the number of people that had to be living in this area – the population had to be enormous. There was plenty of land in this world, she reasoned. Why did they not live out there? Perhaps there was not too much livable land.

Perhaps there were just a lot of humans.

It was beginning to get dark, and Kali knew they would have to turn back, soon. She was just about to tell Tyberis to turn around when she spotted a strange light off into the distance.

'Tyberis,' she thought, 'let's see what that is over there. That light.'

The traffic on the roads below was heavy, and there were many metal-bar roads with vehicles on them, all leading towards that glowing light ahead. Tyberis flew faster, his curiosity spurring him on. As they approached it, Kali realised it was a sprawling city straddling a large river. There was a good amount of traffic on the river, and on the city roads themselves. The glow they had seen from the distance was really the lights from buildings and from streetlamps, whose fires did not produce any smoke. It was astounding to Kali, how huge this city was. She couldn't fathom how many people lived there.

There were a lot of stone buildings and one so large and ornate that Kali could only figure it to be a palace of some sort. Which that meant that the seat of some royalty must be here, because she couldn't imagine a city being any bigger than this. Where there was royalty, there were libraries.

'I think we found what we're looking for, Tyberis,' Kali chuckled. This city would be perfect for her to study the humans. Large enough for her to go by, unnoticed, and later, for nearly fifty people to move in, if all went well. Kali looked forward to the times ahead.