Twenty thousand years ago, though the length of a year was different then, the world was a ball of ice floating in an endless void. It had been for millennia beyond counting, and the crude and limited creatures that had come to live on the thin strip of liquid water and uncovered land at the equator had grown complacent in their eternal stalemate: the Prometheans ruled the seas, the Shartak ruled the mountains, and the Fimir ruled what was between.
How they must have despaired when we graced their world, the sky turning red as the air itself tried fruitlessly to hamper our arrival.
We were led by five, the greatest of our flight: Draugnir, Abraxas, Radixashen, Urmskaladrak, and Kalgalanos. They led us on the long flight through the void, and decided this ball of ice would be adequate for us to rest and grow. The Shartak were the first to encounter us as we claimed the highest peaks and the grandest caves for our own, and we drove them from the heights and slew those that resisted. The Fimir grew maddened at the Shartak invading their lowlands, and tried to unite to make war against us, and they too we shattered utterly. The Prometheans were wise beyond what their forms would suggest, and sank below the waves, only emerging to feed on the battlefields we left in our wake. The world was ours.
Many years passed, and many children were born. They grew into Sun Dragons, who could breach the sky itself and warm themselves in the unobstructed radiance of their namesakes. They grew into Moon Dragons, and would stretch their wings by visiting the white moon, which at that time was the only moon of this world. And at last they grew into Star Dragons, ready to leave to find new worlds to conquer, and many flights did so. But for every Dragon that left this world, one would add their bones to the blown plain of stone that was the only place suitable to die, too far from the mountains to be found by Shartak, too far from rivers to be explored by the Fimir, and too far from the oceans to be fed upon by the Prometheans. The world was large, but so much was unusable that many Dragons grew gaunt and withered without ever growing strong enough to withstand the embrace of the void. Our leaders came together, and the plan they reached was brilliant.
If only our tools had been the equal of our ambitions.
We knew of other beings that plied the void, travelling in silver ships to protect themselves from the radiance we happily bask in. But though their forms were primitive, their cunning was almost sufficient, and we reached an accord with them. The worlds danced in the grip of their magics, and the sun grew larger in the sky as the ice began to melt. We spread across the entirety of the world, from the equator that we had dominated to the poles where the cunning beings made their grand machines. The continents were reshaped into five, and five cities were founded and our five leaders each joined with one. Draugnir with the city of Qt, Abraxas with the city of Iz, Radixashen with the city of Cd, Urmskaladrak with the city of Zl, and Kalgalanos with the city of Cl.
Deathfang pauses, and looks over to the hammock with what almost seems like fondness. "It was Qt that created beings worthy to guard our nests and grow our food. That is almost enough to forgive them for their ultimate failure."
Attracted by the jealous whispers of the Fimir and the broken despair of the Shartak, the Ruinous Powers turned their eyes to this world. After ten thousand years of their insidious scratching, they finally found an opening. The great machines begin to fail and the energies they were supposed to harness began to pour into the world, and the Ruinous Powers began to mould those energies - but the machines were more clever than they expected, as most of the energies were transformed by their passage into the world into forms that followed their own natures, rather than the orders of the Ruinous Powers. But enough remained true to them that they were able to pour their minions into the world. Daemon and Shartak and Fimir fought against Dragon and Elf and the cunning beings and their creations, and we begin to turn the transformed energies of the Ruinous Powers against them.
In the end, the greatest creation of the cunning beings were those they created by accident. With the great machines sealing the world against the Ruinous Powers, the combined beliefs of their creations had accumulated and grown into an entirely new form of life. When the cunning beings finally fled, we fought alongside the Gods instead. To defeat the inrushing of energies at the poles, we and the Gods and the Elves built the Great Vortex, and magic drained back out of the world, and Daemons shattered as the world grew inimical to them. In the end, we were victorious. But Draugnir lay dead, having given all he had to create a terrible blade that had held back the Daemonic legions. Abraxas sent himself into exile. Kalgalanos was never seen again. Radixashen was corrupted and disappeared into the earth. Urmskaladrak died not at the hands of Daemons, but errant creations that he had attempted to recapture.
Those who are true to who we are live beneath the land that was created for us, growing in strength and waiting for the day when even the least of our number is able to depart. But many lost themselves to these new energies that permeated the land, either in desperation during the long war or out of curiosity after it. By embracing the artificial energies that exist nowhere else but here, they doom themselves and all their descendants to die with this world. They live and die without ever knowing the true radiance of stars.
One day, we will leave this world behind to be squabbled over by lesser beings and fallen Dragons. One day, this world will be swallowed by the Ruinous Powers, who will rejoice for a moment or two and then grow bored and turn their backs on it. One day a new sky will turn red as we descend upon an unsuspecting world and make it ours. And one day, we will leave that one too.
Deathfang takes a deep breath, and then turns to look at you once more. "Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
All you can do is nod.
"Then go."
What is reality to question the will of rightful king.
