Ketsalkuet… That sounded an awful lot like Ketsalkuetspalaltepetl, the kingdom that Charm had told me about. An ancient kingdom ruled by wizard-dragons that had started in the Age of Pools, and stood for over a thousand years, only coming to an end roughly halfway through the Age of Sunder, assuming archeological estimates were roughly correct.

Until now, I'd had no luck in finding any trace of the kingdom, and a part of me had started to wonder if Charm had gotten bad information, or something else of that sort. But now I knew that there was something to this.

The first thing I did was remove my lockpick tools and begin to poke and prod at the lock, but some magical force was shielding the tumblers from my picks. I turned the lock, trying to force it open, only for it to remain stubbornly shut. I pried, flared my bloodline to strengthen myself, even pressed my ring to it. I was prepared to cast a general dispel on the lock when I figured out one possible trick. The book hadn't reacted to my use of my bloodline, but I'd also been using it to strengthen myself. I conjured a spark of my fire on my fingertip and pressed it to the lock.

Nothing.

I sighed. I'd really been hoping that the lock would simply undo itself when I'd done that, since as far as I could tell, I'd somehow un-tethered my bloodline from my mother's control. Maybe it would have reacted to a wild dragon's fire.

I began to cast a general dispel then, focusing my staff purely on the lock. The spell was long and complex, taking the better part of ten minutes, but when I eventually finished, there was a click. I tried to pull off the lock again, only to be rebuffed once again.

I picked up my tension key and pick a second time, and set to work. My general dispel had removed whatever magic had been shielding the internals of the lock, and the three unshielded pins were quickly pushed over the shear line, letting me unlock it and open the grimoire.

On the first page, there was a warning written in bold ink, with a second half that had clearly been added later: This journal is only to be read by members of the Ketsalkuetspalaltepetl Royal Line.

Journal? But the cover said Grimoire. At least it confirmed that the journal was linked to Ketsalkuetspalaltepetl, though I wasn't sure that had ever been in question. I ignored the warning, and flipped the page.

"I am Ketsalkuet, and I am to bekomee King of The Endless Planes of Etherius," I read aloud, then sighed. The entire first passage that the long-dead Ketsalkuet had written was filled with pomp and circumstance, emblematic of seemingly every dragon. But for the knowledge and power that might exist in a grimoire from so long ago, I could push past the arrogance.

Not only that, but the language was incredibly outdated. Bloodline tongues, being bound to a bloodline, were less prone to drifting than human tongues, but this was still painfully old and nonsensical by modern standards. I began to read, and quickly discovered why the royal family of Ketsalkuetspalaltepetl had called the books a journal, despite the cover describing itself as a grimoire.

Ketsalkuet had an advanced and powerful draconic bloodline, and he described in great detail all the ways he could use it. I had heard it said that the magic of the Age of Pools was close to that of the Age of Wilds, wherein anything possible could be done, with the only limitation being that someone needed enough power to be able to do it.

In a sense, that seemed to be true. The way that Ketsalkuet described his bloodline was certainly far more loose and free than mine. He merely needed to take hold of his fire and will something to happen, then the cost would be extracted.

Yet… there were still limits. Ketsalkuet was a dragon – a person of the flaming root as he described himself. His flaming roots could be used within the scope of a dragon's purview. He could release them in great gouts of flame, and shape it into any form, enhance his strength of arm and claw, and take on other forms.

Each of those powers was far more fluid and adaptable than their modern equivalent. When he focused on a form, it could be any sort, and nearly instant. When he focused on his muscles, it could be to strengthen, to heal, to change its shape, boost sensory output, and more.

His command over fire reminded me far more of Jackson's affinity magic than it did my own flame. I could breathe out a stream of flame and eat it, sure, and I could even hold it into a steady shape, like an orb of flame, but Ketsalkuet was able to separate it into a dozen different threads, form whips, form nets, shape it into swords, create pillars disjointed from his body, and more.

He also alluded to being able to warp the land around him in defense of his property and what was his, which was an interesting power that no dragon I knew of possessed. There were a variety of different breeds of dragon with different base bloodline abilities, but none I knew of had that power.

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There were some other minor powers he had – sensing wealth, emanating dragonfear, and seeing through illusions – but none of them were like the myths of truly magical dragons, nor even the more magical dragons that Charm had mentioned.

Of course, since this was from the Age of Pools he picked up some new powers from the opponents he consumed. By killing a massive water serpent, he was able to incorporate water into his 'flaming roots', rendering him nearly immune to it. He was able to shape it like he could fire, and his strength grew mightier still.

Interestingly, he spoke of projecting his flame and water outward, rather than pushing it into his 'flaming roots'. A difference from being born in the Age of Pools? A quirk of his bloodline? I wasn't sure.

Though he was pompous, I had to admit, he was a good researcher. The Age of Pools had been long ago, ten or fifteen of thousand years most likely, and while their much looser magic had let them do some truly incredible things, they were still less advanced in many ways.

Despite being born so long ago, Ketsalkuet had taken meticulous notes over his command of his draconic magic. That was frankly the only reason that I'd been able to figure out so much about it from his notes.

I read on, quickly flipping past his journey and the maps he'd scrawled into the book's pages, until he met a group which he called the 'people of the heart'. I had started to skim past, until he described being attacked with bolts of arcane magics, and an elderly witch among the group who cast her magics around him in a great net, dragging him down to earth with arcane symbols in her heart.

Symbols within her heart seemed almost like the hallmark of shaping a spell within the ether pool. This was clearly magic, and perhaps even the hallmarks of what would eventually – after the Age of Sunder and the start of the Age of Stars – become wizardry as I knew it today.

There was no mention of psionics, destiny marks, life enforcement, or any of the other types of magic as I knew them, though there was mention of a priest who channeled the might of a goddess from the heavenly realms above to heal the wounds of those found in battle.

Ketsalkuet and the people of the heart fought for over fifteen years, if his grimoire was to be believed. Judging by the hundreds of pages that I started to skim through in order to search for the juiciest details, I thought he was probably right about it being years. Ketsalkuet was stronger than any individual, including the witch that led the group of humans, but he was less powerful than the entire tribe working in concert.

He set up a base in the local mountains, and seemingly became obsessed with the people of the heart. Over the years, he kidnapped multiple humans and subjected them to horrible experiments, performing dissections and vivisections alike, torturing them for information, and doing worse.

It was horrible, and also… all too familiar. In many ways, Ketsalkuet was acting just like my ex-mother did – well, had – but without the chains of having to run a functional nation to hold him back. I had no doubt that if the Dreki Matriarch had thought doing what Ketsalkuet had done would help advance her power significantly, she would have done so without hesitation.

Thankfully, the demented dragon quickly left vivisections behind. They helped him sketch out human anatomy and improve his human form, sure, but there was little to be gained through the unethical, horrifying experiments.

I actually thought I might be able to use some of his observations on anatomy and the compatibility with dragonfire to improve my human form. There were things he'd studied, like the relative density of bones, which I'd never had the chance to study before. It was possible it would have been covered in some of the more advanced courses with the Dreki family when I'd gotten older, but I hadn't exactly had the chance to attend any of them.

I continued to skim, stopping only to read when he discussed how some of the humans he kidnapped had begun to divulge details on the magic that the people of the heart practiced, and that Ketsalkuet noticed that through all of the members of their tribe that he had consumed, he'd awakened a small amount of power within himself as well.

It was at this point that I leaned in and started to really pay attention. I had been under the impression that the magic of the Age of Pools was limited only by the amount of ether someone had, and it seemed like by and large that was true, but there was also more to it than that.

They had to shape ether into specific shapes, but the shapes were… simple. Incredibly so. Every one of the spells that Ketsalkuet recorded was as simple as a cantrip, but could be used to express vast amounts of power. The cantrip for levitation could control any amount of force, and even be formed into any shape that Ketsalkuet was able to try. If he could visualize it, and had the power to put behind it, he could form it. He couldn't make it into something other than force, but he could still use it.

Something flickered in my mind, and I flipped to the passages where Ketsalkuet discussed the spell formula for fire, and I paused.

It was simple, a lot like the ignite cantrip. But it also reminded me of something else – Jackson's affinity. It wasn't the same shape, not even close, but the description of how magic worked, and the simplicity… It was like every spellform was an entire core affinity spell entirely of its own.

It made me wonder at the origins of affinity magic. I knew in the Age of Sunder, Wizardry had only been in the form of affinity magic, but I'd also been called out for my lack of knowledge as to any other forms of magic.

Ketsalkuet experimented a massive amount with the fire magic, and with his own, and he even managed to form a channel between his two magics. The way he described it reminded me strongly of the bloodline spellcraft ritual, allowing him to empower his magic with the might of his draconic spellcraft.

There was a note, written in the blocky text of the person who had added a bit about the magic being lost due to Ketsalkuet being born in the Age of Pools, but how the use of the dragon affinity magic contained in the bloodflame brazier, it was possible to craft a similar channel. When I read why they would do such a thing, my heartbeat started to quicken, and I couldn't help but read the passage aloud.

"The linking of the two pools of power is the first step on the path to becoming a dragon mage."

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