(This is a repost from old Tazoon boards, with slight corrections and small modifications. It is written as a journal entry so it contains no spoken dialogue. It also comes from a lunus point of view, written with their mindset and arrogance as I see it.)



United in Shadow

Being an account of the Withered Aegis' recent wretched plot, by Varangaard the Blackflame



ON THAT DAY, I was returning from a long and difficult journey to the eastern frontier. My trainer had demanded, in exchange of further knowledge, the eradication of undead wolves called dark stalkers. They were only to be found in the vanguard of the empire, near a frontier settlement called Harro. A place that, much to my dismay, was reachable only through gates of naka-duskael towns. I had chosen to fly there from Chiconis instead.

With the demanding task now complete, I was looking forwards to a good long rest in the volcanic heat of eternal Dralk. I could already imagine its warm updrafts touching my wings, soothing my weary bones. Alas, that was not to be...

Something was wrong, I could tell that as soon as I laid my eyes on my city. The air was charged with tension. There was an unquiet stirring in the flow of the primal that immediately set me on edge. It was reacting to the presence of... something unpleasant. The heat of nearby lava pools felt unusually subdued. An evil portent.

Suddenly feeling very concerned, I looked around, taking closer note of the hurried step of my scaled brethren, and the naka-duskael fortune-hunters that had gathered near the shrine and the gate in much greater numbers than usual. I folded my wings tighter and started down the road, intent on finding out what had transpired, even if that meant passing near these non-dragon trespassers.

The two-leggers' voices fell into whispers as I walked by, obviously intimidated by the presence of an adult lunus. In their eyes, however, dwelt an odd sort of apprehension I had rarely, if ever, observed before. This only deepened my concern. It meant this trouble had something to do with us, the scaled kin.

Soon enough I had gathered more than enough information from their hushed voices. The Withered Aegis was the cause for concern. Right here, in Dralk. Robbing ancestor graves.

Robbing graves?! I quickened my step slightly, and as soon as the nakas couldn't see me, I broke into run. I needed to confirm all this from a reliable source of information.

The first dragon down the road had the misfortune of receiving my rapid-fire barrage of questions. From the answers, it took me but a moment to grasp the full gravity of the situation. The Lich King, it appeared, had sent some of his Ebon Guard towards Dralk. Like thieves in the night they had skulked out of the Aegis gate in a nearby blight bloom and begun excavating the ancient burial grounds. It didn't take a dragon to understand the undead lord's intent. The dragon directed me towards an ancient one who had set up a command post outside Dralk, nearer to the undead activity. I set off at once, my weariness forgotten.

Brysmendrak, the elder gave for a name as we formally greeted each other. With due haste, this yellow-scaled dragon brought me up to date, making special emphasis on returning stolen dragon remains for proper internment. Each we returned would be one less in the hands of the Lich King. With a sharp claw Brysmendrak sketched on the rock the general plan for Dralk's counteroffensive, and where I would be needed. The words had barely died out when I had already taken wing, heading towards the graveyard.

I arrived to the grounds with the speed of an angry storm, carried by furious currents of the primal. The lifeblood of my kin was stirring in the ground, howling in the air, running in my very veins, preparing to deliver a swift rebuttal to this incursion of blight's harbingers.

From my elevated vantage point, I could easily observe almost the entire field. Skeletons, dozens upon dozens of them, were scampering out of the blight gate, their twitching motions a dark parody of the Living. The Ebon soldiery was assaulting the ground with shiny new tools and undead perseverance, unearthing remains of my ancestors! There appeared to be frequent sorties down the road winding towards Dralk, to discourage attacks on the main undead host. They had forgotten about one direction however: from above.

Brief flashes of fire, lightning and shimmering ice brightened the perpetual dusk of the blight. Some of my kin, both Helian and Lunus, were already on the task of showing the Withered Aegis the error of their ways. This day, I decided there and then, would truly demonstrate the undead lords what it meant to anger the kindred of flame and wind. They had committed one of the gravest insults possible. For that, they would learn how hot and unstoppable the rage of the primal could be.

I folded my wings and dived down, straight towards an excavation team. As I crashed down on all fours, the blighted green earth trembled and cracked under my weight. I let out a loud growl, announcing my arrival to all who would dare defy me.

Emotionless but for their permanent rictus grins, the Ebon Guard skeletons turned towards me. Silent except for the click of their dry bones, they pulled their tools and weapons at the ready, accepting my challenge.

Before their hollow eye-sockets could even focus on me properly, I had already blasted at them with a spell and swatted one down with my tail, shattering its spine and pelvis. The rest then charged in, to be welcomed by my fangs and claws. A tall warrior daring a sword was torn to pieces by my quick claw swipe and an excavator lost its head and a good portion of ribcage to my bite.

As I spat out the dry, brittle bones a mage blasted at me with fire magic, sending bright globes of flame crashing down onto my scales. A cowardly attack from behind and poor choice of a spell that was. Their master obviously hadn't briefed them on Lunus' natural affinity with fire. The mage had only a moment to appreciate my resistance before being blasted to tiny pieces by bolts of primal energy.

The rest of the skeletal team met their final deaths soon after.

I noticed an increasing number of naka-duskael joining the battle, just like Brysmendrak had told me would happen. The bipeds were being lured in by the promise of easy loot; they even had Lunus elders' go-ahead to take and grab what they fancied. A simple yet brilliant plan, illustrating how subtle and cunning our leaders were at manipulating the younger races.

A huge bone golem approached me suddenly, almost as tall as I was. In its hands a spear fit for a giant, sharp and eager to stab. My friends had now arrived though, and banding together we took down this would-be dragon slayer. The golem's final scream drowned to our cries of victory.

Four days filled with blood and bones followed, during which I personally retrieved three remains of my ancestors before the undead could deliver them to their master. Then, the skeletons started thinning out and stopped coming altogether. The Ebon Guard had quit their assault.

Surveying the now-quiet battlefield from my mountainside perch, I could easily see why. They had lost hundreds - if not thousands - of their animated soldiers. The Lich King must've conceded defeat, his casualty rates untenable and the success of his plan questionable. Talking with my fellow lunus, we all could agree on one thing: the dragon kin had emerged utterly victorious. Of course, the outcome had been obvious since the beginning. Blight had lost to primal, as it always would.