Looking back on the whole thing, Peter thought it absolutely hilarious, but at the time it seemed anything but. Eventually Tempest's tails stopped growing, but not before each had split into three again, leaving the poor dragonling rooted to the spot in the middle of the courtyard with nine tails embedded firmly in the broken marble floor.
The lesson for the classmates had ended there that day, with them being dismissed and sent off to Lava Falls to practice their aerial combat techniques. Everyone, with the exception of one or two of the bullies that occasionally picked on Peter, was aghast at what had befallen Tempest, with very little flying taking place, most preferring to sit on the cliff side and speculate on the aforementioned events. That night Tempest was missing from her dormitory, with nobody in authority having the faintest idea of her whereabouts or wellbeing. The next morning, all of the students except Tempest sat waiting nervously for the tor to arrive for that day's lessons. To their surprise, in he walked with a big beaming smile broadcast across his face, followed closely by a very healthy and happy looking Tempest.
Missing pieces of the puzzle soon began to fall into place. The tor had undone all of the tail trouble in only a matter of moments after the students had left the previous day. Proceeding to repair all the walls and the marble flooring in the courtyard, he then treated Tempest to a slap up meal, persuading her to stay in alternative accommodation that night, just to make the students sweat that little bit more. The entire scenario had been designed to show the students what could potentially happen if mantras were not used with enough conviction and belief. You might have the world's supply of mana (the magical supply of an individual's natural energy) to power the mantras, and you might be able to pronounce the text faultlessly, but without the right conviction and belief behind them, they could be almost worthless. Peter was certain that none of the students that witnessed the events of that afternoon would ever forget the lesson it was designed to teach them.
Reality flooded back as the walkway he was on started to widen and fill up with dragons of all shapes and sizes. Focused firmly on not bumping into any of them, he marvelled at the surrounding area, wondering just what the humans on the surface would make of the secret world just beneath their feet.
Purbeck Peninsula was one of the oldest dragon enclaves in Britain, second only to London itself. Based beneath the south of England in a region that covers the area from the east of Bournemouth through to the west of Swanage, as far south as the most southerly point of the Isle of Wight, and as far north as Wimborne Minster, Purbeck Peninsula dates back over three thousand years. It draws its name from the fact that its centre is located directly beneath the beautiful Isle of Purbeck, and because the underground area on which the community is built is surrounded by unusual layers of molten lava, making it almost inaccessible from other dragon communities.
It was originally built with only one point of access underground, from the north, which is remarkable in itself as most dragon towns or cities across the world have at least five or six main entry points, because despite their knowledge and power, dragons still acknowledge that they are susceptible to natural disasters and unforeseen circumstances. Although there is only one underground point of access to Purbeck Peninsula, like all dragon-inhabited areas there are hundreds, if not thousands, of secluded entrances to the surface. Most of these are tiny, located in either shops or private residences, with slightly larger ones existing in more out of the way spots on the surface, so that unsuspecting humans don't stumble across them accidentally. Those around Purbeck include caves, abandoned mines, secretly activated entrances in various ruins, two or three rather creative underwater access ways, and some very interesting ones based around a series of puzzles.
With only one main underground route into Purbeck Peninsula it was no surprise that the monorail station was a terminus. However it wasn't just any terminus: the place was huge, even by dragon standards. No mean feat.
Cresting the brow of the hill, the winding path that Peter was on dipped sharply, allowing him to take in the sight of the busy, bustling terminus from above.
Directly opposite, across from where he stood, embedded into the rock face of the hill on the other side of the monorail station and overlooking the whole complex, was the main office that controlled the monorail carriages as they pulled into and departed from Purbeck, making sure everything ran to schedule and that each car alighted onto the right platform after coming down the single line and out of the gargantuan tunnel that fed the station. The individual carriages glided to a halt at the exact individual berth, or platform depending on how you looked at it, on one of the eighteen branch lines that spread out to form the station proper. Passengers disembarked from one side of the car before arrivals filed on from the other side, to depart. Monorail carriages would only be at a rest for a matter of moments, before powering silently back towards the gaping tunnel in the direction that they'd only just arrived from. It was a magnificent achievement, not just here, but across the entire globe: the perfect exercise in dragon management and individual movement, allowing things to run almost to the second.
As Peter ambled casually down the slope of the path overlooking the station, he was struck by the speed with which the blurring silver monorail carriages moved so elegantly. Outside the station, the cars themselves could move in excess of six hundred miles an hour, while obviously going much slower than that while in the station. Even so, it was still all pretty much a blur... that's how fast things were flowing. If any human had been standing there watching, heaven forbid, their limited senses, compared with those of a dragon, would barely have been able to comprehend exactly what they were seeing. Huge LCD screens were displayed across the entire complex, updating nearly every second, the words and numbers on their screens distorted beyond belief by the speed. Dragon passengers in all their forms, big, small, dragon and human shaped, all managed to digest the information and make their way on time to where they had to be. It wasn’t the biggest monorail station in the world, but one of the most standout in terms of natural beauty, creativity with what was already there, and sheer efficiency in terms of getting beings where they were supposed to go at the right time. It was absolutely outstanding.
Unlike most dragons, Peter couldn't remember a time when the monorail hadn't been around. Having been up and running for over sixty years now, it connected every dragon community on the planet via a series of subterranean tunnels, some of which had previously been used to allow dragons to fly between said communities, though most were newly carved, especially for this modern miracle of transport. Throughout his time studying in the nursery ring, the tors and other accompanying adult dragons had taken them on class field trips, using the relatively new form of transport to show the young dragons faraway places, enhancing their understanding of different cultures, both above and below ground. They would also, on the journeys to and from these faraway places, learn a little about dragon history in the form of a series of facts about the monorail itself, such as how it had taken over two hundred years to complete, about the state of the art techniques used to develop it and keep it operational and about the geothermal power across the planet that it harnessed to keep it running. During those particular lessons, it was inevitable that at least one of the tors would drone on about how in his or her day, they had to fly everywhere and not be pandered to by some fancy new transport system. It made him smile just thinking about it.