A morning like most others in Fellhaven, enjoying breakfast before going out to work on the temple, my friends and I nodded to each other for a job well done. Then the horses came. Unusual speed brought dragonborn soldiers to Fellhaven to seek Trueflame, who had recently come to town to help the restoration. The soldiers rode in from the direction of Monolith. From our table, we watched as Trueflame’s expression turned to wrath. He barked orders to his soldiers and his men stationed in Fellhaven ran off to the tents and readied the horses.
“Wonder what the hell is going on?” Iceborn said, standing up from the table. We all put down our utensils and moved to the exit. As we reached the street, the sounds of people yelling and total chaos filled the air. A soldier jogged by the inn and we managed to flag him down for a moment.
“Monolith has been hit! A couple of towers have fallen. They tried for the Citadel!”
“Who did?” Iceborn asked.
“Dragons! They flew in, from where we don’t know…” he said jogging backward and then turned to be on his way.
“We need to find Trueflame. Come on, let’s go,” Kriv said as he led the group to the tent barracks. As we reached the entrance, we heard Trueflame snapping at someone.
“No! NO! Absolutely not!” he barked. A familiar voice argued back.
“Monolith is under attack, you need all the help you can get!”
“I don’t care. I will not have you in my ranks!”
Heddro shoved the curtain aside and marched out of the tent. Upon noticing us, he grunted “Apparently having my criminal status cleared means nothing.” He stormed off to the inn. We pushed on into the tent to speak to Trueflame who was busy packing up his gear and giving orders to the soliders. I wanted to go back to talk to Heddro, but I had drawn a darker card today, and I must take my lady’s word for it.
“What’s the problem with Heddro?”
“He thought he could be a soldier,” Trueflame shook his head angrily, “Not under my watch. I’ve got too much to worry about already without him causing trouble.”
“What is this news about Monolith? We hear it is attacked by dragons,” Iceborn addressed Trueflame.
“You know as much as I know right now. We’re moving out to help defend. It started with two dragons, from the wastes” Trueflame indicated a size and continued, “this happened a few days ago and we sent word to our dwarven contacts in the mountains. There are more dragons now and we still have not gotten word back.”
“We sealed the rift and they’re getting desperate,” Iceborn started.
“Doubtful. The reports say these dragons were fairly large…”
“How long does it take for a dragon to get that size?” Iceborn asked.
“They’d be a few decades old,” I answered. “Which means we were all terribly wrong. We have word from Wyrmhaven. Things are going as planned there. You have a city under attack and contacts in the mountains that you have yet to get a response from…where can we be the most use to you?”
“To be honest, you are best to stay here and help defend the people and tend to any refugees from Monolith, or seek cover further inside the Empire.”
Trueflame had finished his business inside and hefted his gear. He excused himself and wished us Bahamut’s blessing.
“We fight dragons now, which means the weapons being forged in Wyrmhaven are a big concern right now. Should we head out to find Herrick?” I asked my friends, who all agreed this was the time to prepare for the fight against Tiamat. Soldiers rode out on horses and the town began to empty out. Going against the traffic, a single armored wagon rolled in, pulled by a yak and stopped at the inn. “The dwarves are coming here? Maybe this is one of Trueflame’s contacts.”
We neared the wagon and Cherry checked to see if the yak was friendly. A door on the wagon popped open and out stepped an old dwarf. He sipped an elixer and introduced himself. Ogleby. Little questioning was needed before he began spilling everything he knew. A tavern owner (an EX tavern owner) and now widower, he had fled Monolith when everything he cared for had been destroyed by the dragons, including his beloved Meredith. He reported dragons laying seige to the city, along with strange twisted beasts. Seems that when you sacrifice a creature and bath the dragon eggs in that creature’s blood, a scaley abomination hatches. He talked about the nightmarish hounds with no fur that breathed fire. Those beasts and about a dozen dragons choked the city, but came to Fellhaven seeking only one. A white dragon that killed his wife. Tears began to well up, but he held them back as he downed the rest of his elixer.
We listened to Ogleby’s story and his request for help. He could not kill the dragon on his own. We offered to help him, and even invited him to come with us to finish the dragon, but he raised the cuff of his pants to reveal a mechanical leg and informed us he would simply slow us down.
“I can’t go myself, but I can offer you some kind of help,” he said as he reached into the wagon. “I may not have much in the way of magic, but I do know a bit about alchemy.” He brought out a crossbow loaded with some special bolts and handed it to Iceborn. To demonstrate the use, he pulled a smaller crossbow from his coat and fired at a nearby barrel which burst into flames. “If anyone is particularly skilled with a crossbow, they will certainly find that useful.”
Iceborn handed the crossbow to Cherry who then examined the clip. “The clip holds 10 bolts, but I can give you an extra clip. Use them wisely.” Ogleby continued to rummage through his wares tossing bottles around. He flung a bottle over his shoulder and it exploded. With a surprised and embarrased look on his face he turned around and looked at the bottle, then looked at me coughing and waving the smoke away. “Oh…must have been these purple ones.”
He opened a bottle of the purple liquid and poured some on a dagger. “This is the real, concentrated stuff here…” The dagger errupted in flame.
My eyes lit up, “I have one of those…” I pulled out my dagger and the tang illuminated with a fiery glow. He handed six bottles to Iceborn who considered the uses. He took one, Kriv took one and they handed the rest to me. “Oh, great, then let’s hope I don’t fall down again, or I’ll explode.”
“I’m sorry that this is all the help I can give you, but I can pay you. I just want this dragon dead…and…there is one more thing…” Ogleby got teary again, “The dragon took something from me. An amulet. It was an heirloom of Meredith’s. Please bring it back to me, it’s the only thing I have left to remember her by.”
We agreed to the task and before we could set out, Iceborn realized we were short a member. We should get Heddro before we set out on any hunt. We found him in his room at the inn, bags packed and headed out.
“Where are you going?” Iceborn asked.
“To Monolith. Trueflame won’t have me, but I’ll show him. I’ll be in uniform someday.”
“We have a dragon to hunt down,” Iceborn tried to explain, but Heddro was determined.
“No, guys, he wants to go, we should just let him go,” Cherry said smuggly. A sting crawled over my skin.
“Look, they have around a dozen dragons at Monolith, and as near as I can tell an entire militia of dragonborn elite to fight them. There is one dragon right here, and only a handful of us to fight it. Your odds are better here of becoming a hero for the cause,” I tried to reason with him.
“I’m not concerned with being a hero. I just want to earn a title” Heddro argued.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Cherry kept at him. Iceborn was now irritated.
“Cherry, we can use the help right now. Please stop,” Iceborn turned back to Heddro, “The dwarf has offered to pay us.”
“I’m not looking for payment,” Heddro attested.
“Honestly, I’m not doing this for the money,” Kriv cut in, “I am doing this to help a man who lost his wife.”
“I don’t plan to take his money,” I agreed with Kriv, “He’s lost everything else.”
“We’re making a name for ourselves here,” Iceborn added as his final bargain.
Heddro shook his head and looked at me and Kriv, “Really, you let these guys lead?” He turned back to the others, “Really, the dragon and the gnome have more heart.” And with that he was done speaking to us. He pulled me aside as we went our separate ways. “Tell Lola goodbye for me.”
I wanted to cry, but for fear of revealing my identity to him or my feelings to my friends, I held myself together and simply nodded my head as I walked away. I felt anger and pain rising inside me. Pushing him away, letting him leave for Monolith, was like sentencing him to death whether he knew it or not. I was furious. Hurt by Iceborn, though I knew he couldn’t help it. His infernal blood is doing well if his love of money is his worst vice. Cherry, on the other hand, knew better. She has held a grudge against him since the beginning and still treats him like scum for his retreat from Esmerelda in the ruins. Disregarding his help through everything leading up to that, the fact that he still had never received a copper payment from us and still turned himself around to help restore the temple; Cherry still held her grudge. It was a knife in my heart, but as my cards told me this morning, today was a day to suffer. I had to believe that fate had something better in store if I just accepted what was given to me today.
