This was meant to be a short joke that quickly got out of control.
If the dragon is every poked it will be when the best Slayers of Karak Kadrin are present, and if they can't do the job there was no hope in the first place.
The blizzard was so intense it felt more like being battered by hammers than anything natural wind could conjure, cold so deep it felt like being submerged in the ice flows of the cold north, yet Vorrik persevered.
Through the naked stone of the cliff and the jagged, frozen rocks of the summit, he and his brothers in oath had finally found their death, he knew it, deep in his heart that this was it.
Seventy years he had been a slayer, seventy years of being denied his honor, his poor father had died without hearing of his redemption, trollslayer, giantslayer, demonslayer, each title only bringing further shame and grief upon him, as the ancestors still rejected his penance, now finally it was time, an Emperor Dragon, mightiest and cunniest of beasts, tonight he would dine with his ancestors.
Finally after ascending all night, he reached the flat expanse of what surely was the beast's lair, he could feel the chill getting somehow deeper, so much that the rock itself seemed brittle and dead, around him the rest of his brothers where also getting ready for their last fight.
Baragat, almost as old as himself, shamed after surviving a 100 beastmen on his own, young Pareg, looking for an early dead after barely 20 years of fight, not that he could blame him, him and many others had gathered forth for this, the reclamation of Karak Eight Peaks, a deed that could only be claimed by the sacrifice of the mightiest and bravest, surely the ancestors would smile upon this.
They advenced fearlessly through the summit, Dragons are lazy beasts and being noisy would only give it a chance for a better fight and thus the salvation of more of his brothers, but he kept the honor of being first, no one would take his death from him.
Deeper they went into the frozen waste stop the mountain, he fingers had lost all sense but he would shave his beard before letting go of his axe.
Finally, finally, they spotted the beast, laying atop its hoard of stolen dwarf wealth, he waited for his brothers to catch up and was ready to give a mighty cry when he spotted something behind the dragon.
A halfling? No, slightly taller and robed, could it be? No, the doom had come for him, a grey monster out of the Slayers nightmares jumped upon the dragon with a greatsword made of Gromril.
Despair clutched his chest in a cold far deeper than mere physical ice could, he saw his brothers running and knew they would be too late, he raised his axe and threw with all his might hoping to gain the dragon's attention, but it was too late, the dragon's severed head rolled and the feet of the doom-thief.
He fell to his knees and knew he would never rest with his ancestors.
"It's ok Vorrik, there are more dragons out there, we just gotta keep looking"
"I don't think there are, not for us brother, it's been what, 15 years since the last was spotted? We are not so young anymore"
"Then what? We gotta keep going, It's not like we could become double-slayers"
Double-slayers... That was an idea, but how? Shave his beard leaving only a thin strip behind? Go fight the elves? Shave everything maybe, throw himself in water and pretend to be born again, a new name and hope the ancestors don't notice?
Or maybe... It was said that the terror lived atop Gazul's own sword that she may quickly send the souls of her enemies to damnation, that she worked with Kragg the grimm as an equal, that she had brought a new age for his kind, maybe, maybe she would know. A cruel forge it would be, the first of the double-slayers, that he might forge honor anew instead of getting the old one back.
Around him, he could almost feel the shadows smiling at him.
Thank Ranald for that lucky hit, wait a moment, who are those dwarfs and why are they staring at me like that?
