Dragons of the Valley

"There weren't always dragons in the Valley…" Were the last words I heard my Mother say before one of the infernal beasts swallowed her whole, and that was 15 years ago.

Earth has changed a lot in the last one hundred years or so, it has been difficult to keep an acccurate account of the passage of time in the years since The Great Hatching. On the day the earth split open, and the Dragons burst forth in incredible numbers, The governments of the world went into a mass panic. After a month of intense fighting and devastation on a global scale, they chose to launch their Nuclear arsenal in a desperation move, hoping at best for a form of mutually assured destruction. It didnt work.

Man's cleansing fire was catastrophically ineffective when it mattered most, it had horrifying unintentional consequences. While the smaller creatures were disintegrated, the larger, older, and most dangerous of the horde absorbed the energies, mutating into something more horrifying. Beasts the size of Battleships were now Colossal Titans, large enough to cast shadows over cities.

A second unexpected consequence, but much more beneficial, was that the barriers that had once separated the Magical world from the mundane were shattered by Mans Devastation. Understanding the threat the Draconic menace posed to the remaining citizens of the planet, the Elves and Dwarves who had been living in secret for a Millenium opened their cities and their fortresses to the human survivors.

My family had been part of a settlement of Humans that had spent several decades surviving in the "Valley" in a futile act of defiance. No amount of copulation and child rearing could replace the numbers we would lose every year to the Monsters and the Dragon attacks. Our settlement only able to survive thanks to healthy trade arrangements with nearby magical communities, providing us with Magic imbued Weapons to allow us to defend ourselves. After my home was burned to the ground by one of the Five Terrors - Beasts so large and powerful that others of their ilk bow to them in subservience, myself and the other children were taken in by a group that called themselves The Wardens, an organization of elves, men, and halfbreeds who have devoted themselves to patrolling the trade routes as well as escorting any who wish to the safety of the nearest magical stronghold.

15 years after the death of my Mother, my sister Alexandra and I are now full-fledged Wardens in our own right, sworn to uphold the teachings of The Watchtower, our base of operations, and to defend the helpless regardless of Species, regardless of whether they belong to the alliance, after all, monsters and dragons do not differentiate between Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Demons, Celestials, Gnomes, or Centaurs. All the terrors see are food, but little did we know, the true horror was only about to begin.

It was the night of my first patrol, leave the Tower and journey south to the edge of the valley, file a report with the outpost we man there, and return. A simple errand for a small band of recently promoted trainees, myself, A young elvish woman named Xariel, her halfblood brother Arthur, and another human, Thomas. We had hardly travelled 10 miles before we heard a rumbling we were all to familiar with. Anybody who had experienced devastation or combat knew the signs in the time it takes for a hummingbird to flap its wings a single time. Fireballs rained down upon us as we ran for cover, fortunate enough to find shelter under a sturdy protusion of stone large enough for the four of us. The oppressive force of large wings beating against the air kept our gaze averted as the explosion of the final fireball blossomed out of the moment of impact, a large figure strode forth, a hulking figure with the frame of a human, but the skin and face of a Dragon, brandishing a wicked blade in one hand we learned in that moment that the rumors, and our greatest fears were true. Dragons were using Humanoid beings to breed.