A Dragon and the Romp Through the Deep

[BungieONI]

In a dark cave deep below the earth, a great curving piece of bone rises up next to a line of its fellows. It is a gargantuan rib, part of a leaning forest of similar bone monoliths. They surround a heap of hundreds and hundreds of vertebrae which extend out in a great curving river of bone to each side. A mound of shattered bone fragments and dust leans in the crook of this curve, rising taller than four grown men. Forgotten at the bottom is a curved talon like a great eagle's, viciously sharp and jagged, longer than an arm of a man.

Rising into the darkness of the cave beyond the deepest parts there is a terrific mess of long bones in columns of grey. Riddled with cracks and splintered, the darkness hides the crippled forelegs and wing bones of a great beast. What remains of the neck curves opposite of the tail, shaping an enormous crescent against the wall of the cave from this ancient corpse.

At the end of the great neck is a skull large enough to swallow a mammoth whole, laid on its side after a great force embedded it into the stone. The skull is saurian, a giant toothed lizard skull, full of rows of cutting and crushing teeth and from its crown sprouts a tangled nest of fourteen ridged horns. Emerging from that nest is a piece of steel twice as large as a man. A lance buried deep into the brain of the creature.

This is the skeleton of a slain Dragon.

This is the remains of a hatchling Dragon's parent. The hatchling's egg has been hidden for a long, long time in its tiny gap carved into the wall and hidden by the bulk of the larger beast. Made of solid gold the egg shudders in its hole to the beat of small claws slamming their way free and the tiny roars of frustration. Poom! A muffled explosion of gas and fluid reveals a tiny Dragon.

This tiny remnant of the most powerful and fearsome example of primordial life on the Planet is born angry. Even after its breakout from its wet prison it is still trapped, and now it is even hungrier than it was when it broke out of its first prison! This frustration is only pushed beyond the dog sized Dragon's limits when consuming its egg entirely does nothing to sate it.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The tiny scion of destruction howls in infantile fury before taking its small rending claws to the stone and bone in front of it. The bone is left unmarked, but the stone gives and is shoveled into its mouth as it bites at the stone. Worming its way out with a Pop! The Dragon screeches in smug triumph, strutting around with its wings spread and claws stabbing the stone floor.

Then it laughs. A tiny giggle of evil as it skitters on top of the inner curve of its parent's gigantic rib. Free of the detritus of digging free it looks around, its golden eyes and circular pupils probing the dark.

It couldn't see much for some reason and rubbing at its head just got its foreclaws covered in disgusting egg slime. Sigh.

Fed up with that course of action its limited attention span pushed it forward, its four legs spread to hug the ground like a much smaller lizard. Its head bobbed and weaved around obstacles and its body followed with its wings folded neatly like a cape on its back. Its spade shaped tail tip frequently brushing against various pieces of bone and stone with tiny clicks and scrapes.

Climbing up the inclined cave floor past the skull of its parent, stones scrabbling behind it as it slithered the baby Dragon soon found a spiraling tunnel. The air tasted of something other than the cave. And living things, so many delicious living things. And there didn't seem like there was anything interesting here so without a look back it zoomed up the tunnel. Zipping around and around and around until it popped out into another chamber.

It was long, many body lengths greater than its parent. And! To the great delight of the baby monstrosity it was structured. The Dragon emerged from the tunnel just a bit wider than its parent, easily a hole large enough for three or four wagons abreast, onto a fragmented dias. The throne it had given prominence was dust from the passage of the great beast. The floor beyond the dias was smooth, and the remains of broken and melted pillars receded into the distance.

In the middle was a bonfire surrounded by a gaggle of shifting shadows. Food!

Cackling and hissing it headed for the food.

Reaching the edge of the light it could make out no details from its blurred vision. That…it hissed. Seething at the disgrace it rubbed at its eyes and was relieved to find that the blurriness faded as it scraped away the awful gunk from its eyes. Flinging the slime away it haughtily ignored it as it stepped fully into the light to the rightfully terrified shrieks of the green critters around the fire.

It wanted to burn them so badly.

The light reflected off scales the color:

[]- Red. The classic, the magnificent and the dreadful Red Dragon. Your searing red flames are the hottest, brightest, most consuming and most potent amongst those of Dragonkind and reduce the land and everything in it to ash. All beings fear it.

[]- Black. The terrifying and heart rending Black Dragon. Your flames are a noxious green, and while not the brightest of flames they poison and rot the land and everything in it like no other.

[]- White. The glorious and destructive White Dragon. Your flames are a purulent purple, and while not the hottest of flames they curse with ruin and doom the land and everything in it like no other.

[]- Blue. The capricious and cruel Blue Dragon. Your flames are a wicked blue, and while not the most consuming of flames they summon horrific weather and natural disasters upon the land and everything in it like no other.

[]- Green. The ferocious and hateful Green Dragon. Your flames are a toxic yellow, and while not the most potent of flames they twist and warp to your will the land and everything in it like no other.

[] Write in: What did the dragon do next? >


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Hey all! Welcome to my other quest I am running at the same time as Dragon Ball Little O. Here you will have fun destroying things and generally burninating whatever you come across in glee.

This quest will be run off write ins, and I reserve the right to veto weird stuff, rules breaking stuff, or stuff that just won't work. Generally speaking go nuts. You're a Dragon and that means you're basically an embodied god or force of nature.

Updates will tend to be smol, since this is meant to be quick and dirty and funny.

 

[BungieONI]

IBLIS THE IMMOLATOR'S Stuff.​

History of Your Stuff:

Spoiler: Stuff

• A Fat Load of Nothing. This is disgraceful.
• A pile of burning bones in a crater. Slightly less disgraceful.

A pile of burning bones in a crater and a neat stack of gold coins of varying ages and mints twice the height of a man and many times his girth and weight and an interesting immortal bird man minion named Alexander. You also have an animate skull named Chompy. Something actually approaching a proper Hoard.

 

[BungieONI]

It wanted to burn them so badly.

The light reflected off scales the color of glorious, magnificent Red.

"AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The green things screamed as it reared up on powerful, if small, back legs and its wings flared like crimson sails. The bonfire billowed and shone on its bloody shining scales.

"RAWWWWWR!" it roared squeakily. BURN THEM!

Bwoooosh!

The great burning internal rage of its disgrace became great burning external rage as it flexed its instinctive power. A line of flame speared through the mass of green things and sent them tumbling like nine pins as it exploded in the bonfire and sent embers flying everywhere. The flames crackled and it cackled as the embers flicked past its eyes.

It basked in the explosive entrance.

Then the catastrophe ended and the creatures got up and gathered. There were dozens of them, all capering about on two legs or their legs and arms. They were bowed with hunched backs and stared at the monster in their midst with large golden eyes as their greenish grey skin hid them well in the shadows. Or it would if they weren't facing a Dragon.

The Dragon looked around at the gathering mass and noted that there was little of worth in immediate reach after it was finished burning and eating them. Its stomach gurgled in emphasis. Dens carved out of the stone, stones and mushrooms. Clearly these beings were some sort of pack hunting animal in these caves.

They circled and shrieked like bats. The noise! It ached.

"SHUT UP!" The Dragon yowled as another lance of fire pierced through the bodies of six of the animals and burned them from within. The dragonfire in the crater of the bonfire was still burning and melting, eating, through the stone and this new gout drew a trench through the floor the size of a man as it pierced them.

The creatures were afraid, it could smell it as it circled and its talons clicked on the stone. The Dragon's tail flicked animatedly.

Smack!

Ow, what? Its serpentine saurian head flipped around in annoyed pain as one of its wings ached. It looked back and saw the rocks in the hands of the creatures and the one bouncing off its scaly hide. Oh.

Thunk smack pelt.

Ow, ow ow ow OW!

Leaping and shrieking even louder they pelted the Dragon with stones and sticks and other far smellier things.

It twitched and span with flashing teeth.

A creature got too close and like a striking cobra the Dragon's fangs bit into the thing's neck. Shaking it like a dog blood flew everywhere and then there was a Whoompf!

The creature burned as the Dragon breathed, melting a hole through it and then the floor as well, turning it into a pool of molten slag.

"FINE!"

"I WILL SLAY YOU FOR THE DISGRACE AGAINST ME!"

Rising from its pool of molten stone, rivulets of searingly hot liquid running down an unmarked hide the dragon inhaled and then released a great arc of its flames.

The entire little crowd was swallowed in shrieking flames eagerly devouring the air.

The Dragon sat unbothered amidst the carnage. Hmm. It considered. Now what? It thought and then its stomach gurgled and its teeth ached. Following the call of its body it began to eat atop the pile of burning things it had made of its enemies. Meat was torn and swallowed down into its gullet. Bones crunched and marrow was sucked out in time.

Soon all that was left were bones and the ring of carnage, as even a Dragon couldn't consume this entire group of nearly three dozen animals if it was freshly hatched like this one and only the size of a particularly ornery medium sized dog.

Also the fire, which provided nice back-lighting to the whole affair. The hatchling marveled at the flames as they danced and writhed, and ate at the pile of bones it now lay upon in the crater of the pitiful bonfire. That flame set the room to a comfortable temperature.

"HMM." It felt the urge to do something and wracked its reptilian primordial brain. Then it smiled in revelation as it rose and its wings cast a ominous shadow upon the scene in front of it. "I AM THE GREAT AND MIGHTY! LOOK UPON THE CARNAGE I HAVE WROUGHT. I AM...!"

Oh. Its thoughts screeched to a pitiful halt as it realized it didn't have a Name.

"I AM GROM THE DESTROYER!"

"NO THAT'S TERRIBLE."

"I AM ANGYLKA THE TERRIBLE!"

"NO STILL TERRIBLE."

DAMMIT!

[] Write in: What is the dragon's name and what does it find outside the burning hellscape of its vanity throne room of a magnificent being.

 

[BungieONI]

"I AM IBLIS THE IMMOLATOR!" The dog sized Red Dragon shrieked from atop the burning pile of corpses and bones and released a gout of burning red dragon fire.

It was pleased. Totally disregarding the fact that most beings would rightly be utterly horrified at what it had done.

Satisfied with its choice of name Iblis the Immolator pondered what to do next. The throne room it now claimed was so utterly massive that it would take the treasures of several conquered lands to line the floor with enough treasure to swim in, accounting for its growth after the one or two months it would take to do that.

Though now that it thought about it, Iblis was not actually sure how big it would be in a month. Nevertheless, it was confident that if this massive throne room could suffice for their Parent, that it could perhaps be made passable if it was insufficient. But before that, it had to find stuff which was meant to be its.

Giving a happy squeak-roar the Dragon flared its wings to half mast with a flutter and then pranced off the pile and across the humongous throne room towards the door it could dimly see. Or well, it pranced as well as one might when its belly was full of green thing and its scales scraped on the floor.

Through that door as one might expect, there was a hall.

In fact there was a large tangled maze of halls, carved with images of two legged things and their languages. The marks of a handful of kingdoms built one atop the other passed Iblis by, and were idly noted as something which increases its own mystique for laying claim to this place.

Something to read, after it got out of this infuriating maze. The little hatchling was extremely tempted to burn a hole straight through the nearest wall at an angle up just to get out of the place. However, in a display of its magnificent magnanimity and willpower it managed to restrain itself from burning a hole through its new home for the sake of convenience.

Cocking its frilled ear covers this way and that it eventually caught an air current it could follow and it finally, finally managed to get out after what must have been days of wandering with how hungry it got. More like half a day but it felt like proper exaggeration was a necessity right now to properly express itself.

But yes, it had gotten Out.

Stepping up the last stairs inside a shattered inner tower Iblis found itself in a grand hall, marked with the signs of battle between Dragon and something else. Great swathes of stone were cut out, solid runnels of stone that had once been melted to magma and sublimated to gas under the heat having settled and cooled again in the bottom of the troughs drawn across nearly every surface and left sparkling. Claw marks defaced statuary, with some pieces cut cleanly like a razor from the sharpest wing claws and the massive cracks of shoulder checks and tail slams going up the walls and to the ceiling.

At the far end was a great doorway, a hundred times the length of the hatchling at least and through it streamed sunlight occluded by the growth of hanging ivy and trees. Bounding across the floor the hatchling dodged around the hellscape left by its Parent with easy hops and scuttles sideways as needed and then finally emerged into the wider World.

Laid out before it like a banquet bequeathing its table was a lush mountain valley. Pines swayed in the wind caressing the Dragon's face, roaring as their branches touched one another, stretching up the slope to this abandoned mountain city-fortress like a cloak or blanket. Up and around to the heights of the summit in the distance above.

Peeking out from that forest cloak like a beautiful dress peeking out from a drab cover was the remnants of a valley city, growing from one end to the other in a bridal train for some titan creature. Towers, leaning spires and grand cathedrals dotted the forest and became nests for its life. This city grew up and over and around the three mountain arms that spread out from Iblis's home.

To its right and the descending sun was a range of blade like mountains soaring higher and higher before disappearing into the misty clouds obscuring their hidden tops. On the sharpest slope, it was terraced, and a city of blocky complexes and shiny churches grew like moss. To the west was two lumpy and ragged ranges intermingled, creating tiny pocket valleys in a densely lush series of steps like a giant might use. That lushness was supported by the shiny blue waters of a mountain lake, ringed by cracked villas choked with ivy.

But it was the city that drew Iblis's golden gaze.

Peering at the largest spire in the middle of the city with its three sharp prongs arranged in a triangle capped in something that glittered it was pleased. I would love to coil around that thing yes.

And so it would, after it found the treasure in this bountiful landscape. It should probably start at the base of that central spire, where all the buildings seem to be built atop each other in a massive edifice to arrogance and wealth now choked with the death of empires. Or go lake diving for sunken treasure in the shiny lakes. Or, or! Maybe go seeking the reason for the shiny churches.

[] Write in: Iblis has found what is basically ruined Anor Londo mixed together with Barad'dur and left to rot by the empires of the world. Loooooooooooooooot.

Brought to you by a very sleepy Bungie who is on his work rotation through Wednesday.

 

[BungieONI]

Iblis stared out at its domain and knew exactly what it was going to do as a piece of dried egg gunk flaked off its snout.

"Yuck!" It growled and ran out of the door into the plaza surrounded by ruined buildings beyond. The city outside the lair's door was very vertically designed with balconies and stairways going up and down everywhere. Many side streets and alleys were stairs of some variety, wide and long, tall and deep and many forms in between. With a running leap the Red Dragon leapt off the nearest of the balconies across the plaza, looking out over the city below and spread its mighty, if yet tiny wings.

It plummeted and then with a quick correction flapped frantically into the sky and glided through the air gracefully. In its element now.

It caught thermals on instinct and its wings flapped as needed, which was rarely even with its prodigious weight due to its body knowing what best to do. Even so it was a tiny hatchling and could not fly forever like its ancestors could if they pleased. It was an indomitable titan beast, but it was still young!

And so after several hours flying towards the lake it reached its shores and then less than gracefully fell out of the sky and landed with a plop!

In the dust, which just compounded to its cleanliness issues and poked the fastidious parts of its brain into a tired fury. But that fury was stymied by the beautiful sight before it.

Spread out before Iblis was a steeply slopping dip in the earth and in that dip were deep aquamarine waves gently lapping back and forth at the banks. They glinted unnaturally in the sun, many things hidden beneath the waves that it could not see causing a shine to rise from below. It smelt metal in large quantities.

Rising up around the lake were buildings, empty and with rotted facades climbing with ivy and with trees sprouting from their windows and courtyards in a rioting forest. They sat tilted like drunks around a puddle and rubble was present here and there from the decay.

Unbothered by all of this Iblis rose and waddled its way to the lake's edge. There it marveled at its appearance.

Under the greenish gunk its scales were a eye-biting red, standing out and decreeing to the world "look at me!" with a beautiful overlapping pattern like mail. On Iblis proud out-thrust chest were bands of hard scales like a snake's belly, tinted with red and its firey blood. Its tail was long and whip like, the spade at the end formed for cutting and bludgeoning. Its wings were finely jointed and its muscles robust and mighty things.

Moving to its long and sinuous neck it supported a triangular saurian head full of sharp dagger teeth that curved menacingly out from under its lips. Its ear holes were protected by long ribbed fans of thin scale and flesh which shaped sound and provided Iblis with exceptionally keen hearing. Its forked tongue tasted the air and was as red as fresh meat as it wiggled. Its eyes though were the most terrifying, a piercing and luminous golden hue like molten gold in the white of the eye with a deep abyssal pit in the center that was always slit angrily.

Because of its firey blood and Draconic nature even standing at the edge of the lake was beginning to cause it to ripple from the small campfire heat of Iblis, the nature of its fire leaking out into the world in an aura. A quality shared by all Dragons which defended them from birth.

It dove and happily frolicked about on the bed kicking up sand as it rubbed off the gunk, unworried about breathing as its fire sustained it and the water boiled around it gently. It was dim below the waves, the sun reaching very weakly into the dark waters.

In it Iblis saw a strange thing, collections of decaying corpses in ruined steel armor coating the lake bed deeper in and glinting faintly in the weak sun. An army had died here and then sunk into the lake. Or perhaps they died and then the lake came. It was not sure and the armor was in despairingly poor condition.

It swam deeper into the inky blackness towards the bottom.

The corpses became more numerous as it swam in reptilian undulations, wings held close to its body. Two, three, even four or more deeper they lied there in the deep unburied. The water felt strange now, charged with something. But Iblis did not fear the macabre sight around it, merely curious as it occasionally poked at the piles of the dead.

Nothing of much interest to the hatchling fell out of the piles as it prodded at them so it continued on. Deeper and deeper and deeper to the very bottom of the lake and the center.

There it found a plinth or perhaps an obelisk, tilted over to lay on the lake bed, wrapped in chains. Bound to it by those chains is a strange corpse. It had the general shape of a man clothed in a frilly and lacy gentleman's suit but its exposed flesh was sunken and almost mummified, its fingers too long and its nails poking morbidly from its fingers and its face bore three eye sockets and a beak. One eye was bandaged and unseen, one was a dark hole, and one was yellowed and rotten. Its beak was black and chipped around the edges, waiting.

"Hmm." Iblis hummed in thought as it stared at the thing. Such a strange corpse might be an Interesting Thing to keep in its Hoard. It was a quick work of a moment to start melting through its chains.

"Oh? What's this?" A waterlogged murmur slid into Iblis's ears as it released the thing's legs. They kicked and wiggled weakly as the Dragon stared at the not so dead corpse that was now reaching for it.

Clang. Things were moving around behind Iblis, corpses twitching and the armor dimly sparkling.

[] Write in: Well, you found a thing. Its also guarded by the Dead! Have fun!

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Thanks to @Argidoll for the idea for the Crow Man. Fire will definitely work down here so don't worry about not being able to use that.

 

[BungieONI]

Iblis's golden eyes squinted and the Dragon frowned.

The flopping Dead things crawling their way through the water towards it and its prize were mightily inconvenient. Iblis hissed and they faltered. As they should when faced with my magnificence it thought evilly. With a surge of reptilian muscle it flipped and speared out to the first of the horde.

A bite and twist and a claw to the spine and the corpse was flopping limply and its head was down Iblis's gullet. It felt the magic of the Dead curse dissipate as the head met the fire within it and the Dead flesh stoked it higher. It was now in the mix and the morbid fingers of the Dead wiggled through the water and reached for the Dragon as their stamping feet and clawing hands pushed through the muck at the bottom. To slay the Dragon and add its corpse to their number, robbed of its primordial might. Iblis wanted exactly none of that and objected strenuously with its teeth and claws.

Hewing through the first wave was easy, a frenzy driving the hatchling to dip and swerve like the great swimmer it was and tear at the vulnerable bits of the corpses. Iblis hand sized claws left the Dead in tatters and their armor sundered and the hot aura of its flame that extended from its scales seared the Dead's bones and boiled the water around the baby Dragon. The first wave piled up around Iblis as it hissed and growled.

They were not going to stop it taking what it wanted. It would have its Interesting Thing... Corpse-being.

Interesting Entity, whatever.

And it twisted like a ribbon as it clawed and kicked and bit at the second and third wave over and over. The Dragon's red scaled body flashed through the lake and glinted in the dimness and a trail of silvery bubbles followed it. The Crow Mouthed corpse-thing watched with some interest, the Dead climbing over it and leaving it unharmed as they swarmed and swam clumsily towards the Dragon in their midst who had disturbed their tomb.

The second wave piled on top of the first and columns of torn Dead began to form, up and up and up the bodies piled as the third and fourth and fifth wave gurgled towards the hatchling. Their armor clanked and ground against their bodies, locking them into a surging wave of Dead flesh and bone and rotten blood leaking out into the lake. Their magic was great and it sustained them as Iblis proved to the long distant and probably long dead creator that it was the far more dangerous thing in this lake.

After the thirteenth wave, Iblis had torn through several hundred Dead, many towards the end just skeletons as they were the deepest buried and most decayed of the corpses in this lake. It laid down on top of the tallest pillar, holding an interesting skull with strings of meat and gristle clinging to it like barnacles as it clacked its fang filled jaw. It marveled at the little thing as it tried to chomp at its forelimb.

"How cute, I think such a trinket would suit you might Red Dragon." A familiar warbling and waterlogged voice said. Iblis looked up and saw the Crow-Mouth sitting up on the slab of its prison, free from its chains as it tossed the last lengths aside into the muck.

"Hmm." Iblis felt content and tired from the exercise and so allowed this statement. "I think I agree Crow-Thing." Its neck uncoiled as it clutched the chompy skull in one claw and one squinted eye speared through the Crow-Mouth. "What are you?" It asked, its voice a sibilant hiss unhindered by the waves.

The Crow-Mouth stood with a dignified and respectful bearing as it stepped forward and dropped into the muck and bowed with a flourish. "I am Alexander, the Immortal Crow-Mouthed Reporter. I am cursed to live through the end of days and witness the coming of the world ever after."

Iblis snorted at the flowery delivering of this speech. But an immortal was an interesting thing indeed! It hissed in happiness, clacking the claws of one hand in a Draconic gesture of greed and applause. "I think you would make a fine addition to my Hoard, Alexander. What do you say?" It 'asked' its pupil narrowing to a dangerous slit and its voice a purr.

Alexander clacked his beak and cooed. "That would be a fine boon mighty one. Perchance you may have use for an adviser?" The Crow-Mouthed Reporter ventured.

The Dragon blinked. It grumbled like a very tiny rockslide and then sighed. "Perhaps you can be more than just an Interesting Entity. And someone needs to take care of this cute skull here."

It holds up its toy, which seems to be at least not breaking down in its aura.

"As you wish mighty one." He said amicably.

The Dragon sniffed haughtily, happy that its obscenely massive ego was being stroked. Then it sniffed again. Ooooh it liked that smell of metal.

"Say, Alexander. Would there be by chance any gold here?" It asks with a voice laced with titanic greed.

Alexander blinks his singular eye and croaks. "Yes. I shall show it to you." He says before walking off along the bottom. Iblis giggles as it slithers off the column after the bird man to a patch of dirt behind the fallen obelisk/prison slab and pointing at a glint of yellow gold in the muck.

Iblis drooled and began to dig as Alexander gave the baby titan a large buffer of space, holding to the age old wisdom of never get in between a dragon and gold its hunting.

[] Write in: Well Iblis now has two new 'toys'(It thinks they are but well...planet sized ego) and looooot. You don't have to treat Alexander as an adviser, gods know Iblis would probably forget about him a lot of the time, but now he's there! Also, remember to name the skull : D!

---

Probably no more updates till Wednesday or Thursday night since my work rotation ends Wednesday night.

 

[BungieONI]

The dirt and rock parts beneath the dragon's claws as it pulls coin after coin after coin out of the muck.

So shiny, so bright, so mine. Iblis thinks to itself in giggly satisfaction. It hisses at the intrusion of the Crow Mouth, eyes slitted as it gathers its gold to its chest. The man backs away as is proper, approximately within shouting distance now. Chompy has crawled up onto its back using its jaw as a lever and is slowly trying to gnaw through its spine, in futility. That reminds Iblis of something and idle curiosity overruns jealousy for a brief moment.

As it continues to dig, the hole now nearly twice its length in depth and still more gold emerging it shouts to its new Interesting Entity. "What do you know of this land, Immortal?" Its voice rings out through the lake waters on a wave of bubbles from its steaming hot breath.

Its keen ears catch the hum of thought and then Alexander begins to speak. "I have been in this land for uncounted centuries, when it was living it was called Ora-zou. It was a land of plenty, as many claim to be, and as fewer were in truth and it was ruled by Kings. A title for Sovereigns of all stripes and skills and forms. They unified their people through the rule of the fist and claw or guile to rule from a shadowed throne."

"It was a kingdom of Enchantment, a font of great masters and the locus of trade for spices and incense from lands far and wide. It feared nothing, not even Dragons in its hubris. It built great towers of black stone and treated with great spirits in dinner parties held in great orrery's. It knew much of medicine and the body from these beings, and its Kings lived for many years beyond their normal lot."

He nods at Iblis's hole where muck still flies up from its efforts. "It was first destroyed by a Mighty Dragon some centuries before my arrival, a Black I believe. One could find traces of that one's rotten breath still dotting the deep below I believe. Its destroyer's name was Nyko the Shatterer, that terrible monster that had lived for one thousand and one years and decimated half the world. Child of Drella the Rage, who was the child of famed Argo, Nyko shook Ora-zou until it was satisfied and roosted in the corpse of the kingdom."

Alexander shrugs. "Eventually it left, growing bored and taking its hoard away with its slaves to new lands where it eventually was slain by Sovereign Alex of Ro, keeper of the Isle at the cost of their life and kingdom." Iblis paused, mouth full of newly excavated gold and rumbled in displeasure at the idea of a Dragon being struck down. Alexander continued. "Ora-zou rebuilt in time as kingdoms and we peoples do. Through great magics they buried the rot and settled in the bountiful land left over and marveled at the beauty surrounding them. They surpassed it in time, creating a great city state of bliss and alabaster."

His tone becomes somber as he sits on one of the corpses, his lank black hair blowing around his head. "In time magic twisted its foundation and cast down the second kingdom. Necromancy beyond all sense and reasonable scale was one amongst many of the things which occurred here and then a madperson tried to break open a Door to Somewhere Else. Perhaps it was Hell or some other place. Regardless I was there as witness as the armies of Ora-zou failed," Alexander gestures at the corpses around them from his seat. "They had charged in to attempt to stop them and could not. The Crack destroyed them and then its energies left and the scar lingered. It cursed them for their failure to be Dead but still moving forever. Myself already being cursed was left untouched."

He raises his hands and gestures at the lake. "This lake did not used to exist. Before it was a beautiful plaza, paved in gold speckled alabaster, but the Crack created the crater you see here and in time the rain filled it. As for how I came to be there, the Dead found me and some malice in their rotted skulls directed them to bind me to the center of the Crack. That obelisk over there." He points at the plain stone thing.

Iblis pokes its head out of the hole, mouth full of gold as Chompy bites its tail. It gazed at the obelisk which slew a kingdom and considered how it might move it. Perhaps when it had more slaves it would move it, which was a galling thought to have since it wanted the white stone gravemarker. Or... it could give it an attempt.

It eyed the Crow Mouth. "And what of the dead Dragon in the halls above?" it asked petulantly.

Alexander croaked and tilted his head. "That was the Red, the greatly feared and admired by many a general for its skill in war Allako the Doom. That great destroyer came shortly before the mad one emerged, only a century or so. Ora-zou had learned, though it had the advantage since a great coalition of thirty kingdoms and eighteen tribes had come together to slay it for the crime of killing the most beautiful woman in the world at the time, Tala."

He nods. "Allako slew half of Ora-zou, consuming them in flame and its belly. But it was wounded and weakened and the head Vizer Tenree of Goldstaff in service to the nineteenth King of Ora-zou, the King Demalia who had saved them from the great drought, blessed their great Knight."

"This Knight was named Grindel. With the sacrifice of another third of Ora-zou, Grindel was empowered with their souls and his Dragon Lance forged. In a battle with an army at his back that lasted for ninety days and ninety nights and slew every person besides him he slew Allako and then died of his wounds. The remnants of Ora-zou buried him in the ruined tower to the east of this lake, in the central valley.
Ora-zou never fully recovered and the weakness let madness fester and rise up."

He spread his empty palms as Iblis sat before him. "And so now, here we are."

He looks at the pile twice his height and many times his weight in gold and silver coins. "Do you wish to return to your lair Master?" He croaks, his head bowed as his one eye blinks and rolls.

[] Write in: And that's the story of Ora-zou. What do now?

 

[BungieONI]

"I do so wish!" Iblis hisses between its fangs.

"Carry it for me my minion!" It proclaims as it swims up to the lake surface, paranoia assuaged by its supernaturally accurate count of its ill gotten grave goods. Popping out like a tiny sea monster it swims across the lake in a graceful swanning motion and then exits, shaking itself vigorously and splashing water everywhere. It turns to sit and watches the water in silence.

Faintly it can hear clinking and small thuds from beneath the waves. Bloop. Alexander's head parts the waves in silence and his withered flesh is revealed to the light of day for the first time in several hundred years. Its rather like a yellowed prune or parchment sheets, all grey and brown and yellow. On the bird man's back hangs a large sack full of the gold coins, the sackcloth obviously salvaged from the dead. Carefully Alexander plops it down beside the dragon and then turns around to get more. Happily chittering Iblis crawls atop the sack and preens as he pulls two more sacks out of the deep, the skull Chompy firmly hanging on to its tail unnoticed.

Standing with his hands folded at his back he nods at his new draconic overlord who is cackling gleefully. And crooning. But after that business is handled then comes the hard part.

The climb. Alllllll the way back up to its lair.

Iblis leads the way from the ground while Alexander contrives a magnificent arrangement of wooden poles and ropes to carry the two of the enormous sacks on his back while he hefts one in his wiry arms. He seems rather strangely unbothered by such acts which Iblis chalks up to his recent release.

And so they walk through the thoroughfares and side streets, slowly climbing flights of stairs or inclined streets and switchbacks. This section of Ora-zou is particularly residential, many of the houses almost palatial in their manor like nature. Walled and bedecked with withered gardens choked by the lack of space in many places on the edge like this. The roads and buildings were white marble almost exclusively, mindbogglingly large amounts of it.

Puzzlingly large amounts of it as well. For where did the mortals get the stone from, Iblis ponders as it stands atop a balcony midway up the trek. The pair of them stand deep within the "skirt" of the city and tall manor houses that each take up acres of land sprout up around them like enormous toadstools. The gardens here are living and vigorous. Overrunning the houses and walls that once contained them in a blot of greens and reds and browns all tinted by the setting sun. Behind the dragon grew a dark tree bent and withered with age and its trunk turning this way and that as its branches reach for the sky. Buried in its thick and gnarled roots lay the remnants of a quaint metal railing and tossed about were the rusted husks of benches and shattered stones tainted a dry crusty red by the decaying metal.

And no where in evidence is a quarry or much of anything else. Just the City, expanding up to the spire where the buildings at its foot rise dozens of stories and take on a more blocky and brutal cast. And then beyond that on the blade sharp mountain peaks in the far distance sat the shiny terraces it had seen before. Retiring from its admiring pause the tiny evil being moved away and up into the pine forest far above.

Here in the upper reaches the ground was sundered and rolled with the roots of the giants all around the dragon. They speared up into the sky from the streets and the buildings where they had been kept in private courtyards. They roar and sway in the wind and the sharp scent of crushed needles fills Iblis's nose. In the darkness of its first night Iblis looks at the towers of the mortals being consumed by the world and the cold unfeeling stars far above.

It feels... melancholy. Its thoughts turn to the sky far above and they wonder what stars it might have been born under. Soon that cold light is hidden from it as they descend into its lair and the shattered throne room where the crater of bones still burns.

"What manner of creatures were these bones my master?" Alexander asks, sweat running in the grooves of his wrinkled flesh.

"Put the sacks over there." Iblis says as it points with a talon at a section of the floor that isn't on fire. He does so quickly and then opens the sacks. Iblis rushes over to the gold and counts it out in its talons happily.

Here are seven thousand nine hundred and ninety three coins the size of its fore claw and slightly thicker in the middle. From a lick they are pure gold and printed with the face of some bald emperor of the past. Here are nine thousand and forty three coins of platinum the size of a fingernail and embossed with a delicate image of some long forgotten beauty, perhaps that Tala Alexander had mentioned. Here are ten thousand coins of gold and silver as wide as two claws held together with a small hole punched through them and marked with a flowing line of entangled knot work around their rims.

Beautiful all of them. Iblis carefully takes each coin in its claws and sorts them by size, weight and shape into neat stacks with the light from the burning crater providing a backdrop to the creature's labors. When it is done it has dozens of stacks that come up to Alexander's waist and it hisses happily as they shine in the fire light.

chomp

Iblis blinks and twists to hold its tail in front of its eyes. Dangling from it is the animate skull Chompy. Iblis blinks at the creature, having entirely forgot its existence. "Youuu go here." It says authoritatively, plucking the skull from its tail and plopping it down atop the highest stack in a convenient divot. It clinks against the coins almost angrily and then settles to stare balefully at the flames with its empty eye sockets.

Or at least that's what Iblis presumes the magic skull is doing. It can't really tell.

That dealt with it turns to Alexander and harumphs. "You stay here, I'm leaving." It says and sidles up to him, standing on its hind-legs to stare at him with one large golden eye. "Steal nothing human." It pointedly spits.

Then it stomps away and out into the air.

Ora-zou is spread out below it, but where will it go now? It could go to the terraces first to loot the shiny churches or it could go check out the spire and that tomb. Either way when it was done perusing this city and looting its valuables it was going to take a nice looooong nap. It was getting sleepy. And rather hungry.

[] Write in: Where do you go first and what do you do there?