Finding Luna wasn't difficult. She was sitting in one of our common areas, a notepad sitting on the desk before her and a pencil in her hand. The expression of annoyance and the empty page of paper before her spoke of indecision and boredom, so it wasn't a surprise when she instantly agreed to do something. Anything.

This might be the biggest disadvantage of the new tower, its remote and isolated location. We had to build here due to the Nexus, but nothing was interesting in the area, just rock, ice, snow, and the occasional roc flying nearby. Even the local mountain goats didn't come this far up into the mountains, staying at lower elevations, where they didn't have to travel as far to find food. Without mountain goats or other prey animals, the predators had no reason to come here, leaving the area desolate and abandoned. Maybe I'd be able to create some elemental beings, tied to the Nexus and under my control, but that would take time and some precautions. I had no interest in creating a danger to my tower. Instead, I wanted these elementals to be another line of defence, in case the tower came under attack from outside forces.

Luckily, stepping through the shadows gave us mobility options we otherwise wouldn't have. Given that I hadn't tried to step through the shadows across long distances while taking Luna with me, I decided to test a few things first.

Namely, the first thing was to try and see if I could step through the shadows to reach the Temple of the First Dragon. It would probably be the longest distance I had ever tried to traverse within the shadows, even longer than the step I had taken from the Temple down to Jademoon Tower. However, the difference wasn't all that big in relative terms; the distance was only about fifty per cent further, which should be manageable.

Closing my eyes, I let myself sink into the Astral River, letting my mind get swept away from the tower, following the primary strands of the river. Starting here, at a Nexus, made traversing the river both more difficult and easier at the same time. Its presence gave me a solid anchor, something I could readily perceive across long distances. While physical dimensions and directions were irrelevant in the Astral River, familiarity and understanding were not. In this case, my familiarity and the runes I had placed within the temple to anchor myself to it allowed me to find the path to it within about ten, maybe fifteen, minutes. Then, it was only a question of pulling myself into the shadows with the understanding that the shadows here and the shadows there were all part of the same, slightly different layer of reality, what I called the Realm of Shadows. Then, I stepped back out of the shadows, looking around the temple I had left empty.

Only to find that it wasn't empty any longer.

At least not all of it. The inner sanctum, the area where I had stepped out of the shadows, remained empty and pristine, but I could hear sounds from nearby, too loud and too close to come from the outside. For a moment, I considered getting my daughters, but then I decided against it. This was the Temple of the First Dragon, and my daughters, no matter how much I loved them, weren't dragons. Even I didn't fully qualify as a dragon yet, I remained a Dragon-Touched Firn-Elf, though I was pretty sure I was draconic enough.

Still, I didn't want my daughters to worry, so I stepped back to the tower, noticing that it was a lot faster to find the anchor there, as I only had to search for the Nexus, and informed them I was investigating something at the temple, a task I was best suited for. Regardless of my own draconic status, I was the best when it came to stealth, even if Lia was working hard to close that gap. I doubted she'd manage any time soon, but she was trying.

With my daughters reassured, I stepped back into the temple and made myself as invisible and unnoticeable as I could manage. Then, I began to slowly make my way towards the sounds I had noticed, leaving the inner sanctum by stepping through the shadows to bypass a few sealed doors as I went. Given the unfinished nature of the inner sanctum, it wasn't open just yet, possibly why it had remained untouched.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

When I came across the first inhabitants of the temple, I couldn't help but pause and stare for a moment, my eyes going wide in disbelief. I had considered a few possibilities, but this wasn't on my personal list, though maybe it should have been.

Back when I originally built the temple, large parts of it had been dedicated to dragons and their reproduction, providing a safe space for the various draconic creatures Luna and I had created in this area to breed and lay their eggs in peace. However, neither of us had any real idea how to facilitate the necessary security, so, as yet, the temple only had several secluded chambers, somewhat similar to caves but much more sturdy and secure.

The noise I had noticed earlier came from one of those chambers, meaning I had to be exceedingly careful not to get spotted if I tried to enter. The entrance to the chamber was a short and relatively narrow tunnel, low enough that I'd have to duck while entering. Any occupant would be able to defend the entrance against any number of enemies, though they'd be trapped inside. Perhaps I should consider adding an emergency exit of some sort, just in case the sanctity of the Temple were to be breached.

Now, while these chambers had been built, nothing else had been added. Nothing to incentivise draconic creatures to use them, nothing to indicate that these chambers even existed. And yet, at least one of them was occupied and, as I found out with a small and carefully obscured scrying construct, it was occupied by one of the draconic creatures Luna and I had created.

In this case, it was one of the large lizards we had altered and given an affinity for Fire and Earth, turning it into something relatively close to the Lindwurm of legend. Four-legged, elongated body, lots of sharp teeth, the ability to breathe fire and, maybe most importantly, an innate armour harder than most rocks covering it from snout to tail. Anyone trying to fight one of these beauties would be in for a bad time, especially as it turned out that they seemed to be growing quite quickly, going from the size of a medium-sized dog when we initially made them to the length of a horse, with about a metre of tail sticking out the back.

Here, the happy mother was curled around a clutch of four large eggs, the chamber hot enough to be uncomfortable for most creatures, but the Lindwurm looked exceedingly happy. At least to me, I might be projecting my own impression back onto it; I wasn't sure.

Looking around, it didn't take long for me to find the father of this particular clutch, another Lindwurm, but that wasn't the biggest surprise of the day. That honour went to the discovery that multiple different draconic family units were living in the temple and, by the looks of it, they all got along peacefully. I had no idea how that worked. I was reasonably sure that these creatures were usually quite territorial, and yet, in the hallways of the temple, they moved past each other with little more than a snarl or hiss.

Confused by those strange interactions, I paused and positioned myself somewhere out of the way. There, I began to delve a little deeper, examining the area closely and finally noticing a faint, divine influence. If I hadn't been as relaxed and focused, I was pretty confident I would have overlooked the influence entirely, though that might be because it was so very familiar in nature. Namely, it was the influence of the Mother, who gave shelter to the various creatures here, allowing them to raise their young in peace.

The mindbending part was that, despite recognising the influence of a divinity associated with myself, I was utterly incapable of doing anything beyond acknowledging that the influence existed. I couldn't manipulate it, take it back or do anything beyond accepting that the Temple here was under that influence. Maybe destroying the temple or desecrating it somehow would break the blessing, but beyond that, I couldn't do anything.

At least not as I was now; maybe if I fully ascended, accepted the divinity of the Mother, and made it my own, I would be able to change things about the blessing this temple had. But right now, I was reduced to being a passive observer of my own, divine shenanigans.

I couldn't help but think that this would become a headache at some point in the future. Hopefully in the distant future, but I wasn't confident about that.

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