Storm Hawks Chapter 102: Phoenix Island
All right, so this is definitely a sidebar. An indulgence. Go back to the storyline and read this later if you want.
In an earlier (longer) version of Legend of the Storm Hawks, Phoenix Island got considerably more description and backstory than made the final cut. I’m reveling in it here instead.
Phoenix Island is another of our earliest encounters with the advanced technology still intact from the dragonkind’s last cycle.
“At the bottom of Lake Jura. What else is down there?”
“An estate as large as Glenayre. Homes and fields and pastures. More Dawnguard live here than Firstborn at Twelvestones.”
“And a castle made of steel.”
“Like none you’ve ever seen. Not sleek like a sword, but wrought as a silversmith crafts a fine piece of jewelry. Images of heaven and earth. Engravings of creatures beyond imagination. Tall towers with no stairs at all but those we added.”
Hidden beneath the waters of Lake Jura, home to the legions of the Dawnguard, is a domed estate covering thousands of acres of farmland and villages, powered by mysterious dragon science, sprawled over the lake’s floor. Like a freshwater quasi-Atlantis. Built by dragons.
Your first and highly logical question is, “Why would flying dragons want to live underwater?”
Ah, that’s a study in sociology that mirrors today.
As dragonkind’s cycle marched towards its final world war, survivalist sects began preparing for the apocalyptic end. Same as now.
A small but well-financed consortium of engineers, historians, and merchants decided an underwater bunker offered the greatest odds of surviving the devilish array of weapons of mass annihilation being stockpiled by every two-bit dictator, warlord, and CEO on the planet.
They built Phoenix Island.
They intended it to be an ark-in-reverse. Survive fire and chemical gas clouds instead of a flood.
As in the story of Noah, they collected animals and plants to seed the future. Of course, these folks were more technologically advanced than Noah, so most of their collection consisted of DNA material, not living, breathing, food-consuming critters.
“Some of the creatures in the carvings are unlike any we know,” said Ashlon. “Spotted horses with necks so long they could graze on treetops. Tiger-striped horses, turtles the size of a rowboat, and armor-plated rats that curl into a little ball when they’re nervous.”
Giraffe. Zebra. Giant Tortoise. Armadillo.
Those splendid creatures didn’t make it into this cycle. We’ll miss them.
But a few new species evolved from what survived, though the names they were tagged with may be throwbacks. Auroch. Gwynwulf. Guinea.
“What of the bubble? The mechanics? What powers it all? Waterwheels?” said Seth.
“None we’ve found,” said Ashlon. “Whatever its source, it doesn’t need stoking and it never dims.”
Solar power? Thermodynamics? Fusion? Something else entirely we have yet to consider? Definitely, definitively, decidedly not fossil fuels.