Dragons, Wizards, Knights, and dungheaps!

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

And by valley I mean both the physical description of our home and the name of our town: Valley.

See, my great-great-grandparents founded the town, and their names were Val and Ley. They of course thought it would be hilarious to combine their names and name the town Valley. At first it was Val-Ley, But my great-grandparents changed it to some weird foreign name for valley: Tal. Then my grandparents changed it back but dropped the dash.

But back to dragons. I always thought dragons were mean and hoarded treasure and ate humans. And that’s what all these dang knights in shining armor and wizened wizards apparently believe. The knights are all blonde and talk about their mommy’s. The wizards all wear robes and wear pointy caps. Frankly, all of them are ridiculous.

They just won’t stop coming: asking if there is a bounty on the head of any drakes (who the hell calls them drakes instead of dragons anyway?!), then they are shocked when we tell them to buzz off.

Don’t get me wrong. I was very concerned when the first dragon showed up. As mayor and our revered founder’s great-great-grandson, people might expect me to do something about it. But then after about a week the dragon flew over the town. (I still need to replace that pair of pants.) It stopped and kindly asked who was in charge. Of course everyone pointed to me! They can’t listen to me during a council meeting, but oh I’m in charge. The dragon then told me that his extended family would be coming to live in the caves on the north side of the valley. But he would happily help with some construction projects and other heavy lifting to make us feel better about it and to pay for the drain on the food supply.

Honestly, it was a nice little chat, despite him being a dragon and all. They seem like a good bunch of chaps. Karl, our dear horticulturist, has informed me that their poop is worth its weight in gold for fertilizer. Which is how we had the idea for the agreement we are signing tomorrow.

The contract specifies that the dragons will establish a collection site (a dungheap, in non-legal terms) for their waste and we will cart it off in exchange for discouraging dragon-hunters and sharing our food, water, and land. Then there are like ten pages of extra terms and conditions. I don’t think that part is necessary, but Steve - our legal expert - insists that dragons love that stuff.

Which reminds me: First thing in the morning I need to prepare a large bowl of ink. The head honcho dragon can’t just go and use a human sized quill. So he is just going to make some sort of draconic - or is it draconian - mark with his claw.

The only hard part is discouraging the hunters. I’ve never met such a persistent group of salesmen. “But Sir, we have the best dragon-killing techniques around! It won’t cost you much for us to kill the dragons. We will even throw the first one in for free.” It’s really enough to turn a man off to the entire profession.

But I’ve commissioned Bill - our head of public works - to work on some signage. The signs should say things like, “Stay Away!!! Perfectly normal town with no dragons.” Or maybe, “Adventurers beware. Boredom ahead.” or perhaps a good ole’ “NO TRESPASSING!!”

Ah, I feel better. Ever since the dragons showed up, it has helped me to write my thoughts down.

-End of Entry-

“MAYOR! There is another wizard-looking guy here to see you!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake! Tell him to go home. We don’t want any of his kind around here!”