Gatekeepers Book 1: Darkness
Exam at Daybreak

“Hey, Draycos, wake up!”

Draycos could hear a voice hissing as he slept, but he didn’t bother to listen, and just turned over in the bed, moaning softly. He was about to drift off to sleep again when something wet splashed all over his face. Draycos bolted up, sputtering as he looked around. Zero was in his cell once more, but he had a serious expression on his face this time. An empty picture hung upside down from Zero’s clawed hand; he had apparently dumped the whole thing of water on Draycos.

“W-what was that for?” Draycos sputtered as he shook his head, sending droplets of water flying out of his hair.

“You know why,” Zero growled. “The assessment test, remember? It’s almost daybreak, and some of the other prisoners have already gathered in the main cavern.” He proceeded to squeeze himself out of the cell, motioning to the wooden table next to Draycos’s bed with his tail. A bowl of mush was sitting there. “Go ahead and eat, then hurry up and get down to the cavern.”

“Alright, alright,” Draycos muttered, picking up his boots and the bowl of food as he made his way out of his cell. Poseidon was sitting at his desk, and Damrabe was leaning against the wall next to the open door. Zero was nowhere to be seen; he had apparently woken Draycos up and left immediately upon doing so. Poseidon and Damrabe looked at Draycos as he came out of the cell and sat himself in front of the fireplace filled with sea-green flames. Draycos said nothing and began to quickly consume the food as the fire dried out his wet clothing. Within minutes he had finished off his food, slipped on his boots and stood up.

“Well, I’ll be off now,” Draycos announced, heading for the door. “Thanks for coming to see me off, guys.”

The two dragons remained silent as Draycos walked through the doorway. But as Draycos made to close the door behind him, Poseidon finally spoke up.

“Be careful during the exam, Draycos,” he warned. “It could easily get very dangerous for you, especially the last one. And, well, good luck, I guess.”

Draycos stopped for a moment and looked over his shoulder at Poseidon. He smiled, then proceeded to close the door completely before turning back around and taking a deep breath. He took off at a jog to the entrance of the cave and jumped over the edge, which was around a hundred feet in the air. Grabbing the ledge before falling, he started to quickly climb down the rocky wall, mostly just using his hands to climb down and only using his feet when there was a large foothold to place a foot on. Scaling down the wall in roughly a minute, Draycos jumped down to the floor and looked around.

There was a line of prisoners starting at the edge of the opening in the cavern, and more and more prisoners were crawling out of their caves to join in the line, as well. At the front of the line was a group of dragon guardsmen, along with Vertex. One by one, Vertex bound the hands of each prisoner together, created a length of chain attached to a collar on their necks, and handed them off to a pair of guards. The guards then flew out of the cavern in pairs with a prisoner hanging between them. For the dragon prisoners, the bindings on their wings were undone so they could fly themselves, but chains were still bound to each leg that the guards kept a tight grip on.

Draycos hurried and got into line before a large crowd of prisoners gathered in line. He got in line behind a rather large dragon that walked on all fours and started waiting. Someone shoved him roughly from behind, and he turned around to see Brock towering over him, glaring down at him past his now crooked nose.

“Oh, hey, it’s you,” Draycos commented. “You’re taking part in this as well?”

“Obviously,” Brock snapped. He didn’t care to cause a commotion today; he didn’t want to get banned from this year’s games for any misconduct. “Everyone wants in on this.” He made eye contact with Draycos. “I realize we don’t exactly see eye to eye with each other, but I want the chance to take you down in the games, so I’ll give you some info you’ll find interesting.”

“Huh? Well, what is it?”

“You know how only the winner gets to leave the prison to do community service?” Draycos nodded. “Well, the thing is, only dragons have won the games up to this point.”

“What?” Draycos was surprised to hear this. “Why’s that?”

“Because dragons are monsters,” Brock grunted. “And almost all the winners from past games are still in prison. All these guards you see around here; almost all of them are the previous winners.”

“Really?” Draycos looked around at the guards stationed around the cavern. Almost every one of them was glaring right at him.

Eek. I guess they don’t like the fact that the games got moved up this year. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the causes for that.

At that point, Draycos had reached the front of the line. Vertex gave him a silent nod before making his usual gesture with his right hand, binding Draycos’s arms in place in front of him.

“Good luck,” Draycos heard Vertex whisper under his breath, Draycos turned to look at him, but the pair of guards escorting him grabbed his chains and took off before he could say anything.

“Thanks for the info, Brock” Draycos shouted as he was yanked into the air. Draycos thought it might be best to avoid drawing unwanted attention to Vertex, so he didn’t say anything to the dark grey dragon. Draycos and his two guards exited the cavern and started flying in the direction of the rising sun. Blinded by the light, Draycos was forced to keep his eyes closed for the next several minutes as his hair whipped in the wind. His hair had barely grown out over the past month, but his spiky bangs were now threatening to cover his eyes.

Suddenly, the two guards changed course and shot straight up into the sky, increasing their speed dramatically. The wind force tore Draycos’s eyelids apart, and he watched as they continued to rise higher and higher, bursting through the clouds. There was an incredibly bright flash of blue light that forced Draycos to close his eyes, and he heard a loud sonic boom that surrounded him, deafening his ears. Then all was quiet, and Draycos slowly opened his eyes.

The bindings holding him had vanished, as well as the two dragons escorting him. He appeared to be standing on blueish purple clouds that swirled around his feet. Above him was a dark night sky filled with stars shining in all the colors of the rainbow, and shooting stars constantly flicked across the sky. There was nothing else in sight. Draycos tentatively took a step forward and put some pressure on his footing to see if it would hold; he had no desire to fall to his death. But the clouds seemed to be relatively safe to walk on. A rather loud voice suddenly boomed out.

“Prisoner ID #10243, named Draycos,” it stated. Draycos recognized it at Zero’s voice, but he couldn’t determine where it was coming from. “This exam takes place in an alternate space created by mages in the Magic Association to ensure security and to prevent the prisoner from escaping during the exam. You will be tested on your attack, defense, speed, magic, and endurance to see if you can take on the rough combat one would face in the Prisoners’ Games. Are you prepared to start the exam process?”

“Yeah,” Draycos responded without hesitation, scratching the back of his head. “Let’s stop wasting time and get this started already.”

“Very well,” Zero’s voice answered. “Let’s begin. First, we’ll assess your attack, or rather, your offensive capabilities. This test will also allow the examiners to judge your defensive capabilities, as well.”

At the end of the sentence, some of the mist from the clouds rose up from the ground and began to condense and solidify, until a large selection of different weapons appeared and floated in a circle around Draycos, moving at a slow speed clockwise.

“Please pick a weapon from the selection provided,” Zero’s voice said. “You will require one for the first section of the exam.”

Draycos slowly looked around at his options until a weapon caught his eye. A one-handed longsword was floating in between a morning star and a bow. The sword was completely black; the blade, the guard, and the hilt were all pitch black, making the entire sword look like it was forged from shadows. The blade was wide and curved, and Draycos remembered that this type of sword was called a scimitar. A black ring was attached to the end of the hilt, large enough for Draycos to poke a finger through. Draycos reached out to grab it, half-expecting his hand to pass right through the object, but his fingertips brushed against cold metal as he carefully stroked the blade. Making his decision, he grabbed the hilt and pulled the sword out of the ring of weapons, and all the other weapons vanished with a puff of purple-blue mist.

A short distance away from where Draycos stood, a large amount of the mist began to swirl and gather. It began to take shape, and as it solidified, it resembled the form of a dragon. The mist dragon raised its head and let out an ear-splitting roar, breathing white-hot flames from its maw as it did. It then began charging at Draycos without any warning whatsoever, shaking the ground as it ran.

So, they don’t tell me when to start attacking? Draycos remained calm and stood where he was as the dragon drew closer. He gave a somewhat wicked smile. Fine by me; I like it when the fight comes to me.

The mist dragon was almost on top of him before Draycos took any action. Tightly gripping the scimitar, he rushed the dragon and dodged between its front legs as he slid across the ground, embedding the blade of his sword in the belly of the dragon as he slid. He carved the dragon as he continued to slide until he came out from underneath the tail end, the tip of the tail split in two by the blade. He stood up and threw the scimitar aside as the mist dragon swelled up and burst in a large explosion of purple-blue mist behind his back. The scimitar vanished underneath the clouds, as if it had continued falling after being thrown by Draycos.

“Next up is the agility assessment,” Zero’s voice stated.

“Aww, come on!” Draycos complained. “There’s no break in between tests?”

Zero’s voice didn’t reply as the clouds shifted and squirmed. A large tunnel created from the clouds appeared in front of Draycos; he couldn’t even see the end of it.

“You will continue to run down this tunnel until you reach the end,” Zero’s voice continued. “You will be timed. Also, please be aware that there are some traps laid out within the tunnel. You have five seconds before you may start.”

“An obstacle course, huh?” Draycos remarked as he got into a runner’s start position, mentally kicking on the music in his head. “Sounds like this one will be fun.”

“Begin!” With that, Draycos took off down the tunnel made of swirling purple-blue clouds.

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