Vermithrax
The dragon-city sleeps under San Francisco. Nine bloodlines fight over the door — and the humans never look up.
They built their city over ours
Beneath San Francisco sleeps Vermithrax, the fabled first dragon-city. The humans raised their town on top of it and never knew; they called the place Yerba Buena before they called it San Francisco. Every bloodline knows Vermithrax is down there. None has found the door — yet.
They whisper about Obsidia
The Royals run the human tech empires as a mask. What they are truly building, they call Obsidia — and no one outside the Court will say what it is. Only this: the fog thickens as it grows, dragons go missing to make it, and the Royals expect to rule the Nine the day it is finished. Ask where, or ask what, and the conversation ends.
Where the Nine stand
For a hundred years the Nine kept an uneasy peace — small grudges, older debts, skirmishes quiet enough to blame on the earth. It is not holding now. The Royals have stopped pretending, and one by one the houses are remembering exactly what they are owed.
How the humans are kept blind
Dragons survive by staying myth. Every fight and every slip is dressed as something ordinary — until the Heat runs too high and the humans stop believing.
The night the door opens
The Knowledge seers hold the prophecy: the entrance to Vermithrax is revealed at the peak of the Total Lunar Eclipse, 31 December 2028.