Palace of Fallen Time

Chapter 1: Dragons

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. You wouldn’t know it from casual observation that a mere century ago, before the Pact of 12 Nations, Oren’s valley was a pristine, hillock strewn, lightly forested grassland, nestled with rivers and bursting with leaves and flowers of all colors and properties. Lovers and families could be found camping along banks and craggy trails just 50 years hence, and a signpost still stood at the head of the main NorthWest trail directing visitors to local attractions. The first sighting was followed swiftly by the first massacre, and the news of an untracked brood spread like fire through the nations. They had taken Lake Donmol, nestled in the heart of the valley, was the rumor.

It took one week for the nations to declare Oren’s valley a dead zone. A barrier, enchanted many times over, containing over many tonnes of mortar and metal, as well as contraptions both magical and mechanical was swiftly erected around more than 1,0000 in order to claim the area befores the dragons exhausted the resources in the valley and turned their hungry eyes outward. Resources - food and water - had to be piped and transported into the valley to keep the dragons in a more docile state. The hunger of a dragon was a common metaphor in the Faultlands, always associated with aggression and madness.

Then, of course, there were the Cullers. Jorb Eeson, 3rd generation Culler and 5th in his class, jogged steadily into the thick mist just inside the entrance, past the tilted and faded welcome sign. His massive armor, armor, dark green and jagged, made, of course, of Dragon Scale and mythril, rattled with every step. Dried brush and dirt crunched and crumbled underneath each footfall of his highly tractioned combat boots, their soles black, heavy, and creased.

Further down the path, which descended gradually into the valley, the smog was so thick he could hardly see through the protective visor in his helmet, a visored enclosure that formed an upward jutting spearpoint to punish areal combatants. Jorb did not need to see far ahead for his work, and could use his ears and nose well enough to locate his prey.

Jorb heard the cackling and braying of dragons and the sharp, grating whine of dragonlings approaching. His pace quickened, and his right arm unsheathed the massive golden lance on his back, and played with its balance in his hand as he ran steadily onward. Jorb felt the hum from the lance, indicating his proximity to the drakes, he began to countdown every other step. 20…19…18…17…16…He risked a glance down to check his armor, which was all in order, except maybe the plant debris trailing behind his left foot. It would have to wait; he was in his form now.

10…9….8 ….The sparse cries of drakes were all around him, but still much denser and louder up ahead. A new scent rushed in through the helmet’s air filters - a hot blast of dragon breath. Not the killing kind, just a burst of indigestion, which could be almost as deadly for the olfactorally sensitive.

5…4… A low hanging tail thunked the side of Jorb’s helmet, knocking his head and torso abruptly to one side, but not altering his course. The dragon in current possession of the tail made an abrupt cry, and Jorb heard its wings beating as it changed course to investigate.

3…2…1….Dragons on all sides had taken up the call, but it was too late. On his 40th step, Jorb dropped to one knee and thrust his lance to the sky, with an explosive “Hah!” A dark force pulsated from the spot where the lance stabbed the air, buckling everything it touched. It sparked along his armor, which shielded him from all but the mildest of the pulse’s intended functions. In the wake of the pulse came alarmed shrieks of dying dragons, their insides now dissolved and failing, through the warped air in the wake of the pulse, and the thuds of those that had been airborne.

Jorb steadied his breathing and stood, slowly lowered the lance to his side as the repercussions of his attack echoed around him. Moments later, a nearby hiss and rush of wind alerted Jorb to a bull drake, its wings broken, angling towards him on the ground full bore. His pulse quickened and adrenaline fueled him as he adjusted his stance to face the dragon, pulled his lance far behind his back, and hurled it heavily as he lunged forward. The lance pierced the dragon’s throat and stuck there, but did not halt its approach. Jorb turned, and ran perpendicular to the dragon, which was now upon him. He spun round and prepared himself for the dragon’s jaws by leaping into the air as the dragon tilted its head and snapped sideways at him. The force could not pierce his armor, but the material dented some to the bull’s teeth. Jorb groaned as the dragon held him aloft like a toy, its eyes blazing, an ominous gurgle coming from its throat.

Jorb called out “Laleth,” the lance’s name, and it returned to his right hand via the astonished dragon’s esophagus. Staring the bull right in the eyes, he shouted the Lance’s name again and it rushed forward from his hand, piercing the dragon between the eyes and traveling the course of its body before returning once again to Jorb’s hand, which, along with Jorb, was lying on the ground, and inclined to stay there a little longer.

A bull surviving the culling lance was nothing unusual, and Jorb was relieved that the job was done; however, as he sat up and pulled the dense plant matter out of his boot, something else worried him. By now, the sound of approaching pods should have been audible by now. He tilted his head around to see if he could catch the familiar distant caw from one direction or another when Jorb heard something altogether new to him: a deep yawning noise, impossibly low, and immediately troubling.

Jorb rose to his feet, his body humming with terror. The ground itself took up the sound, vibrating and pulsing irregularly, making Jorb stumble. He barely managed to hold his stance, which he widened instinctively. His mind raced and his heart was a battle drum in his chest. No great wyrms had been sighted in the Oren’s Valley quarantine, but that didn’t mean Jorb hadn’t been drilled on how to face one. The course had all been theoretical. “Pray you never see one,” were the first notes he remembered taking. And then the three rules. Jorb cleared his throat, swallowed hard, and waited, fidgeting with the balance of his lance.

Rule 1: Don’t move.

The wind whipped around Jorb in a sudden gale, clearing a wide radius of the smog, revealing dramatically the light of a clear day above, and a swath of the valley below, much less green than ever, mostly gray and dessicated, and the massive being whose long, marvelously scaled body winded from the deep waters of Lake Donmol and up the valley towards Jorb. It was responsible for clearing the gray shroud of smog, one of many natural sovereignties possessed by matured drakes, and appeared now to be moving sinuously towards Jorb. The cheery violet of the sky, revealed by the parting of the fog, held sovereignty above him for a sweet moment before the shadow of the wyrm’s head enveloped him. The misty tendrils face itself was several stories tall and too wide to take in all at once. Jorb shuddered, stepping back, his body tingling with impossible elation and panic. The shadowed face regarded him instantly, its pulsing visage turning to him slowly in parlay.

Rule 2: Listen.

The air throbbed, and a voice in Jorb’s mind told him the great one’s ontent. “Jorb, of the 14th culling platoon of Oren’s Valley, tell your commanders, your walls will not protect you any longer. The old one wakes and your cities will be your pens, your kind the feast of harvest.”

Rule 3: Wait to respond.

Jorb closed his eyes, and counted slowly to ten.

Rule 4: Acknowledge the message, and ask if there is any more.

“Very good!” Jorb shouted his reply clearly and with conviction. “Is there any other message I might carry back with me?” Always check if there’s more to the message, however odd that might feel.

Jorb’s reply hung in the air, almost humorously, as the dragon’s massive eyes trained left and right, perhaps in thought.

“The meat has grown stale, and we prefer larger cuts of healthier animals.”

Jorb marveled at the change in tone, and stuck to the rules.

“V…Very good, great one. Shall I tell them anything…anything else?”

Again, a pause, and then, “Yes. We would like more kelp,”

“I’m sorry, did you say Kelp?” Jorb pointed to his head to indicate he didn’t quite believe what he’d heard.

“Kelp. From the oceans.” With that, the great head turned, pulling the winds and smog back into place with it, leaving Jorb reeling in the dry gales in the rumbling wake of the great one’s movements.

Rule 5: Pray it does not kill you, intentionally, or by sheer accident.

Jorb hurried back to the wall, saying all the prayers he knew, and making up some new ones, just in case.