The Written Word (Larathia)

[therealorion]

Most tales that traverse camp fires are fueled by fancy and run through and through with hyperbole, like a garment is laced with ribbon. They bear a distant relationship with any form of truth, third cousins at best with reality, an estranged aunt to authenticity. They pass from lips to ear with intents to entertain and to bluster and are the air beneath one’s soaring ego. However, on rare occasion will such a tale bear with it a grain of golden truth waiting for fertile soil in which to root and grow. This is such a tale, a wondrous and terrible adventure born of gathered folk around rising flames.

The night was dark and those that were brave enough to leave the protective walls of their homes and inns were gathered around a crackling fire that sent up the sweet scents of cypress to the inky sky. They were joined by adventurers, those who disdain homes to deny their monstrous foes the joys of destroying them. Back and forth their tales went until one silenced simplistic yarns of hunting a hobgoblin through bramble thickets. They spoke in hushed tones of a journey from the east, a treacherous journey made all the more treacherous by the greatest of mortal foes. They spoke of roaring deep within caves, of ruins scattered over a lonely plain, and of their great fear and the haste of their retreat.

Maria overhead their tale and was not dissuaded from finding the location of this terrible wyrm, she badgered them for details and added the essential auditory lubricant of wine to her inquiries. She was a brave wizard, confident in her abilities, and well know throughout the land for her skill and her aptitude with teaching. She was not one to hide from truths and even the simplest peasant child knows that dragon’s possess hoards of more than simple coin. Many a wondrous artifact will join that heap, denied to those who would wield it best. Avarice could not be ignored, covetousness brushed off by such a wielder of the arcane.

However, wisdom dictated that dragons were terrible foes and one skilled and brave wizard would not enough to counter such immense wickedness. Maria naturally sought a partnership with a peer, Raryldor who was a priest of Corellan Larethian, an elf who had seen many years in the war ravaged lands of Narfell. As she could draw forth the arcane, so he could draw forth the divine and they were an endless wellspring of incredible power. Enough even to send a wyrm with a black heart to match his hide to the hereafter.

Such endeavors are not taken in haste, not successful ones at least. The two minds pored over what they knew of black dragons and into the morning schemed with enough acumen to make even the Red Knight give pause. Plans and counter plans, and every contingency was given scrutiny lest they be caught unawares. The cost for such mistakes would be high, they would never see the welcoming gates of Norwick or wander her grassy paths again. Both were well aware of the burned and blackened bones that formed the pathways into a dragon’s lair. With the golden dawn came the next step, lists in hand they traversed the land.

Not a wizard slept late that day, nor did any merchant get a chance to unlock the doors late. Their were potions to be purchased in clanking bulk, the brilliant liquid shining in sturdy glass. Enchantments to be woven with words that seemed to linger in the bright clean air. The path would be long indeed, several days if not weeks in the journey. For between them and the ruins of Ormpur were the ruins of lost Jiyyd. That tragic place that spewed forth demons now where it had once given birth to rich grain and well crafted weaponry. Paths that had hosted the hard working and the pious now took the tread of the unspeakable and nightmarish. But this was a danger well known to both brave heroes and upon their form they garbed themselves in every form of enchantment and whispered prayer protection. Their eyes turned inward and upward, calling forth the power to pass unseen and safe through even the darkest places.

Past Jiyyd, the place long past prayers and hopes, they found the cold windswept hills that rested against the formidable Coldstone Mountains. Winds swept down with the breath of winter and carrying the maddening howl of wolves. They stalked these hills with yellowed teeth and lean bellies, their gaunt frames evident of the wastelands this had become. Their noses carried them scent of warm blood and yielding sweet flesh but their eyes showed them no such prize. How furious their search was, slavering for the promise of a meal like they had not seen in ages. For all their bile, no such feast appeared to them, Maria and Raryldor passing without so much as a shimmer for the predators to focus upon.

That danger would seem the softest of risks in comparison to their goal, that inky beast that laid in wait for any brave enough to take life into hands for the sake of glory or gold. Ormpur was ridden with caves, each just like the last. Those fortunate wanderers who had relayed this tale under duress had not known from which the object of their terror seemed to reach for them and this was not a land to dwell in. Adding prayer upon prayer and spell upon spell, they at last stood before the death’s door, garbed in bones and rusting armor. The foul stench of acid and rot on the cold wind, breathing outward upon their fair faces. This was the time that stopped the heart and drained the fervor, this was the final step and there was no turning back now.

The strength of their planning bolstered them on and they breathed deep the fetid air as boots stepped upon and over long forgotten weapons, cracked helms, and the shield that had no one left to protect. Whispers on the air air spoke of the miserly habits of this dragon, it was counting it’s precious horde. Coin clinked upon coin as they moved silently down the passages. A glow met our eyes, the promise of wealth everlasting, of coin so that the mind could not grasp the immensity of it.

Before we were in sight of such a dreadful thing, Corellan blessed the day by making his servant safe from harm. A great sanctuary imbued the heavenly light of Arvandor kept the priest from his end and enabled his duties, to keep his companion hale and whole. For certainly, he could not let her fall, not when she had come so far into the nothings and the nowheres and entrusted him with her life. Maria summoned forth magic that whispered to the deep places, the places where light was a foreign word, calling shadow and dark to cloak her brilliant red garbed form. To fight the dark, she became the dark.

The dragon heard their final preparations and in a scrape of scales on gold and a terrible thumb and scratch of claws on stone, it started for them. My dear readers, it is hard to describe such a behemoth as this. It was so black with the brilliant shine of ink and the light played off smooth scales like a river flowing. The enormity of it seemed impossible, it filled the cave and loomed over them with teeth like the heads of spears, the blades of swords. All teeth and barbed body, claws and boundless muscle. It was an endless sight of fiendish natural weaponry for the express purpose of ending their lives. However, they stood strong, hearts unmoved by this show of power and hands grasping sword and staff in turn. They had not come so far to flee like birds before the oncoming fox. They stood their ground like bulls, ready and willing to bring forth an end.

Raryldor’s prayers sounded even above the hissing and roaring of the stygian wyrm and no brutish beast could block the ear of the Creator from hearing his own. Great elementals of stone and earth creaked and grumbled up from the floors of the cave to raise fists to slam into scales and sinuous muscle. The dragon had expected two weak limbed morsels and found that it was now assailed on every side by bludgeoning blows. It’s attacks drew forth little more than dirt and pebbles, not the flowing rivers of blood it had imagined. The acid of it’s abhorrent breath could no more slay such creatures as water could slay the mountain. No sooner had it laid to gravel these than Marie eyed it with bright smile. For she had been waiting for the moment the path was clear and with a masterful phrasing of ancient words, the dragon felt all it’s protections, all it’s innate magics, all it’s necessary shields, stripped away like lace before the scissors.

Jubilation to the heroes, horror to the monster, and it was not yet over. For as long as four scaled feet stood on earth, they could not cease their efforts. The spells that flew scorched the very air, words prayed for and recited, hands in movements to facilitate the flow of magical energies, and ardent pleas to a god that smiled on such greatness. Piece by piece this hellion was eaten away as the two would give no ground up, no small victories for a final bit of draconic gloating. The air was filled with the scents of scorched flesh and burned components, howls and cries intermingling with victorious yells and masterful commands.

However, the battle threatened to turn. The dragon was withstanding their most powerful efforts and one snap of it’s jaws could easily end the lives of Maria and Raryldor. They needed a plan, a final plan for victory. It was in this moment that Maria, brilliant and bright, garbed herself into flame. It licked around her harmlessly and leaped upward, a shroud of inferno that the dragon in his folly struck at. It would be better had he bashed his head against the rock, for the pain of striking at Maria would cause him. Every bite, every claw brought forth searing agony from his proud flesh. While she stood, his rage ended up tearing only his own flesh and body. There would be no victory but it was too blind to see.

Raryldor saw his moment and prayed fervently, heart leaping at the chance to finish this great task, soul jubilant at such opportunity. Taking sword in hand he rushed forward and in a stroke that would have cleaved stone, put end to the infamy of the black dragon from Ompur The blade slid between scales and pierced heart and there was no more light in the eyes of the beast. It felt, death throes nearly crushing fleet footed foes. It was done, it was over. They had done the greatest of battles with the greatest of foes and to them went the spoils of victory.
This my dearest friends, was a tale worth the telling. For in the actions of our own we find inspiration, in the toils of our peers we find our hearts lifted. If two can slay a dragon, then certainly no evil can stop our endless forward tread toward good and righteousness. See in this tale how careful planning and masterful execution shall always take the day against insidious foes. Rejoice in their victory, learn from their example.