Dealing with Dragons

For being the only other community in the whole of Illusion Vale, Dragon's Hollow was not anything like Vale City. Actually, it wasn't even much of an establishment to speak of. There were no rows of houses or mayoral office or merchant shops. If anything, there were only a few medocre houses in a loosely defined area around a sort of 'town square'. These houses too, were of great variety in their make and upkeep. Some were proper houses or cabins, some were huts or tree houses, others still were lean-tos or even tents of some sort. There were a couple of people wandering about, minding their own business or completing personal chores.

Still, even if the houses were dilapidated or ill-fitting or weak, the paople were not. They walked with heads high and stepped proudly. Their eyes were sharp, lit with purpose and never did even one of them not look one another in the eye, partly to acknowledge a fellow or to size up an newcommer who might be an opponent.

Aside from the people of Dragon's Hollow, only one place stood out, and that one place was why so many Valians came to Dragon's Hollow....

The Coliseium.

The Coliseum was little more than a carved out recession in a low hill. Popular theory was that the hill site was a stone quarry for Valians in the distant past when Vale City had first been founded and the need for strong stone had been realized. In any case, the sloping sides of the recession had been tiered much like steps around the open pit area in the center. The center was the deepest point in the quarry, and was now filled with sand, dirt and gravel aside from the odd boulder. The pit was open on one side and to the sky, allowing access to and from the center but climbing into the ‘steps’ from the center was also possible although with some effort. Six, ten foot columns flanked the open end from the center leading to the outside. If one could fly above and look down, the whole thing would look like a giant C stuck in the center of a hill.

The Coliseuim was not just a place to fight, many of the citizens of Dragon's Hollow came here, as well as many from abroad, for many purposes and it was here, that the newest resident to the Vale had come......

He awoke to the morning sun, sat up and looked out over a cliff that shadowed Dragons's Hollow. Making a hasty meal, Taljor packed his bedroll, ensured his camp fire was put out by stopping the coals with his hooved feet.

His was anxious to reunit with an old friend he had not seen in too many years. His mighty battle axe strapped to his back, a two-handed sword (that is more like a long sword in his hands) on the right side of the belt and a tower shield held in his right hand.

The path was well used and it allowed a faster time. As he made his way to the outskirts of the town, he passed no judgement to the inhabitants. He too came from a background that was not set upon who had money and who did not. His large, black haired frame did get a few ominous looks. These were from creatures that would 'normally' call minotaurs enemies.

The main street lead straight to the Coliseuim. A couple guards, if you want to call them that, were standing at the enterance and were not entirely sure how to react to the newcomers presence.

"I'm here to see GoldenDraken. Is he here today?" His voice very clear and the two "guards" saw right past the "beast" to see someone that at least might be educated.

One of the men casually watched the hulking minotaur stride forward. He was a plain looking fellow, with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, almon shaped eyes which watched Taljor like a preditor and thin, pointed ears.

He held a small knife which he was sliding along a long branch, clearly carving it into something, but the shape of the stick-to-be was not clear yet.

"Is'n there something tha'd ya be needin' stranger?" he said with a thick, unrecognisable accent.

Towering above the human, Taljor looked at the man with a dumbfounded look and began with a sarcastic tone, "I'm looking for GoldenDrakon, didn't you hear me the first time?"

So, I will repeat myself, "Is he here today, this very moment?"

The thin man looked over at his companion, a proud-looking centaur, deep chesnut brown and standing some 16 hands at the waist. From there a human torso projected another two and a half feet, ending in equally brown hair which fell in rich locks to his shoulders. Slightly pointed ears peeked through the hair and deep, searching green eyes peered at the newcommer over a thin moustashe.

"Weee now," the first one said. "Ain't we got anudder friendly 'un here." His almond-shaped eyes centered back on Taljor.
"Now lessee here. yeah, I hear ya, and yeah so you be lookin' for Ole Drak. Lotsa folks be lookin for 'im too. Some to gawk, some to see iff'n they can stick a knife where it don't belong...more's the pity for those fools as it were."

"So lesse if we can do a wee bit better this time 'round friend. Just why do ya need to see Drak, an' iff'n it's a good reason, I'll go an' fetch him for ya."

"How's that?"

The hulking beast looked at the centaur with an evil grin, one of which just might have given him a cold chill and make sure to keep an open eye while sleeping.

Taking a step back with his right hoof, which made both guards make ready for the unexpected. But what they got was the unexpected. Taljor reached a hand into the side of his pack and brought out a rolled up parchment, unrolled it and read it aloud.

"New to the Vale? Have a skill or talent? Then you're in luck, come to the Coliseium and see GoldenDrakon and get paid for those skills and talents."

"Is that good enough reason for ya'?"

The elf smiled pleasantly, if not a bit sarcastically.
"See, now that wazzunt so hard, was it?" He said, rising to his feet and slipping the knife into a pouch at his waist.

"Lemme go and see if'n Ole Drak is takin' visitors today then." With that, he turned and went into the hill opening.

He was gone for some ten minutes while the minotaur and centaur only glared stoically at one another. finally the elf returned, leading another man toward Taljor. He was tall, but Taljor still stood more than a foot over his head. He looked like a clean shaven, human male whith short cropped black hair, but golden eyes looked over the minotaur even as long and leathery red-gold wings rose up over each shoulder only to turn and fold back down the length of his back, nearly extending to the ground.

He regarded the minotaur for a few, silent moments with his arms crossed over his chest before adressing him.

"I am the GoldenDrakon." he said. "I have been told that you have come looking for work. What skills do you offer and what are you seeking in compensation?"

Seeing the "human" hadn't made the first move of official greeting, the minotaur put a hand forward for a hand shake.

"I'm Taljor. I am a skilled fighter, weapons master of the axe and sword. Before coming here, I was my clans champion. I also have training in upper class etiqute. As I am not fluent with magic, I do not fear it. In fact, I have worked closely with wizards on a variety of items, mainly weapns and defences. As for compensation, I will take what you feel is appropriate until I have proven my worth."

GoldenDrakon cocked his head to one side for a brief moment, then took the newcommer's hand in a firm grip.

"Welcome then Taljor, to the Illusion Vale and our own Dragon's Hollow."

He released the minotaur's hand and started to walk.

"Please, come with me." he said, letting the minotaur walk along side him if he so chose.

"You must be new to the Vale, that or you have some other motivation for coming to us. We seem to draw more than our share of warriors of one sort or another. Rumor has it that I am forming an army..." he snorted, partly in irritation and partly in mirth.

"... an army. To fight whom? To defend against what? No, while I do not mind your profession or battle prowess, our needs go beyond simple strength of arms. I need those who are willing to take chances, to delve into the unknown and bring back reports. I need those who are willing to work hard and sweat blood with no guarantee of profit or gain..."

"...and possibly die in the attempt."

He turned towards the minotaur.

"Are you such a man? You are free to refuse and go back to Vale City, or wherever else you wish to go."

"Don't let your eyes settle upon me as a steriotype. Yes, I may be a very skilled worrier, but you grow some smarts by losing too."

He stopped as to let GoldenDrakon peer in to what looked like souless eyes and in a tone that was firm and without disrespect, continued his words. "I do not fear death. I do not fear pain, it allows you to know you are still living... and I learn quickly of those things that I do not know or understand. I am patient and will take days, weeks or even months studying my adversary for any weakness before making any sort of move. If this is not what you are looking for, then I will look for employment elsewhere and stop waisting your time."

A slight half smile curved up at the corner of the dragonman's lip.

"I like that." he commented. "We have all encountered pain of one sort or another. It is good that you are not beaten down by it."
GD led Taljor to one side of the sprawling camp. There a still smouldering campfire sat in the middle of a clearing, marked off by nothing more than two blankets, strung up between long poles in place of walls. A crude wooden table stood against one blanket-wall with a barrel next to it.

"Our adversaries are worse than pain or death but you are not far off by naming steriotypes. Are you aware of the social situation within the Vale?"

He paused garnering the answer from Taljor's blank expression.

"The citizens of Illusion Vale are seperating into two groups, The City Valians and us, whom my fellow upstarts and rapscallions have begun calling themselves, The Drake Valians. Whatever our beliefs, politics or motives, the two greatest differences are that there are over a thousand City Valians, who posess the vast majority of the wealth and industry, such as there is, in the Vale. There are fewer than two score of us and we only have what there is that we can gather, trade or barter. However, while the City Valians look to Wraith for guidance and leadership, we choose to look to Illusion Vale itself and to each other."

"Even if we were to turn out whole collective energy into collecting and selling resources, we would be linited to what there is around us. We could grow food, gather wood, furs or whatever, but there are too many City Valians for us to provide for and there is little we could gather that they themselves could not also gather. In short, we are not relivent to their ecconomy. Wraith and her court have begun moving away from barter in favor of hard currency. While we shared in the initial bounty, we have little to nothing which we can use to provide revenue from."

From a sack, GD produced a tin cup and dipping it into the barrel, offered the now full cup of water to Taljor.

"You see our delema. Our enemy is nothing we can battle, duel or kill. Our enemy is ecconomics and resource. We must procure something that the City Valians need and need in great enough quantity that they must come to us. If we do not, then necessity will force us back to the city to work for those who have gold and currency. We run the risk of becoming indentured servants to those who have the means and the authority. A caste system is already forming, indirectly or no, and we Drakes are at the bottom of it."

Listening to GD, Taljor understood the basics of economics and now fully understood the 'side' he has chosen. To over come challenges, this was nothing new for the minotaur.

He took the offered cup of water, drank the contents, turned it upside down and tapped the rim before handing it back.

"I offer an and all of my tallents. Which, if I have not said it earlier, I am a very skilled smelter and black smith."

GoldenDrakon nodded. "Impressive skills to have, by chance did you make your own weapons?"

"In any case, while we would welcome such skills, we currently have no ore to smelt. But I do have a plan to escape our economic shortfall."

GoldenDrakon again dipped into the barrel and produced a rolled, yellowing papyrus sheet. He unrolled it on the table, using the now-empty cup to hold one corner and a rock to hold another. Upon the sheet were colored splotches and markings. Upon inspection, Taljor recognized the parchment to be a crude map.

"I have traveled extensively about the Illusion Vale, from one end to another. I have seen more of the Vale than anyone else, except perhaps for Wraith herself. Do you know anything of the greater expanse of the Illusion Vale?"

Again the minotaur offered a slight shake of his horned head.

"The Vale is the greatest, richest and most luxurious place I have ever encountered or remembered by anyone I have ever spoken to. It is a virtual paradise in practically every way and holds wonders and treasures for those who seek them. Vale City and its citizens are examples of this. Look how quickly so many have come and been provided for given the need for food, shelter and purpose. Illusion Vale is a sample of Heaven, but only at a great price."

"The whole of the Vale is surrounded by a deep desert we only call 'The Wasteland'. Sun scorched and barren as far as the eye can see. Even in my dragon shape, flying for days I could not find an end to it. The Illusion Vale is a perfect oasis on the middle of a hellish land. The Vale is a beautiful utopia that provides for us, but that makes it no less of a prison. Even Lady Wraith, the First Vallian and Caretaker of the Vale, is also the First Prisoner."

The dragonman dismissed his current line of discussion with a wave of his hand.
"I digress. I have located a place of interest here." and he tapped the map with one finger, indication a spot within the plain brown area which surrounded the smaller, colored areas. "It is a place where I discovered rock salt deposits on the surface, but it is two days march within the Wasteland. Even discounting that, it is another five or six days from Dragon's Hollow to the border. The border is an area which rises onto a two-tiered plateau with the green vale on one side and the brown nothingness on the other. A hard road for those who cannot fly.”

“Already I have sent people to clear a path and establish a base camp on the Vale side of the plateau. What is needed now is a few people to go to where this site is and determine if it is practical to set up a mining operation and return with as much salt as they can safely carry. This will not be a simple matter. Aside from the travel, the Wasteland is a harsh place, but not uninhabited. Creatures do exist there, but I cannot say what they might be or what they might do. Worst of all, there is no water at the site or anywhere in the Wasteland that I have found. That alone will make things difficult to say the least.”

“Whatever the difficulties, if we can procure this salt, we can change our fate in the blink of an eye. Salt will revolutionize practically everything in the whole of the Vale, both here and in Vale City. Food quality and preservation, medicine, cloth production and leather curing; that and a dozen other industries would benefit greatly from salt. If we control the salt, then our place in Vale will be much stronger. If you help us, and if this venture is successful, then I can promise you a share of the profits once our industry takes hold.”

"Yes. I did make some of my own weapons and tools. I am not a Master, but am no mear apprentice"

Has he watched the dragonman draw his crude, but effective map and listen to his finds, then plans to fill a need, he quickly realized the intelegence of this mysterious creature.

"This is a fine plan. Lets waste no more time. I will be off at sun rise. I will need to go over a list of pack items without compromising my movement."

GoldenDrakon nodded his head.
"In the future, we may ask for your other skills but for now, the salt is our priority. Please take care in selecting your equipment for the road will be long as well as hot. Consider also your need to take extra water."

"If you would like, we can prepare a bed for you, unless you have some other arrangements. I can also have you meet the others as well."

"There will be four of you going. Ceres, Charlot and Beowulf will accompany you."

Ceres idly picked some fish from her teeth. It was a rare find - fresh fish from one of the oasis that she had found on her forays into the desert. Of course, Golden Drakon had had to rescue her and take her to the oasis in the first place. It would be the first of the many attempts to take her own life.

Sometimes she resented the man, mostly for his ability to see things in her that no longer existed or she doubted ever had. She had drifted along for a long time, a few years before he had come to the Vale - always angry, always depressed.

But sometimes she looked up to him, sometimes she could almost bring herself to call him a friend - or even... a brother.

And then there were those other times when she wanted to kill him. It was those wings. Those magnificent wings that allowed him to soar high into the clouds and disappear for days at a time. He lived in the mountains, easily for his ability to fly.

Blinking away unexpected tears, she shifted her shoulders - a common movement for her though others simply assumed it was an aquired mannerism. She would never tell them the real reason she did it. The real reason that every few minutes she would roll her shoulder blades.

Sighing, she spat out another bone. She hated fish. She hated water. She hated every thing. Reaching out a claw, she hooked a tail up and sucked on it, releasing the sweet flavour built up just there. Sighing with pleasure she closed her eyes briefly.

She carefully set the tail back onto the crude plate she had before her, all of the fish she had collected picked clean - bones glistening in the firelight.

Then she casually swiped and sent the entire lot crashing to the ground. Silence reigned as her plate clattered on the floor - round eyes stared at her. Abruptly she giggled then snarled wordlessly at them, standing and striding out of the mess hall.

She would never eat another fish again.

Her scales shimmered pink, red and then a cool blue.

She needed to hit something. Now.

Making her way to the Arena, she growled softly to herself, lengthening her spikes along the way. GD had been right, this was not her natural body - but her constant fighting had forced her to become intimate in the ways of this body far faster and more acutely than others were with theirs.

Her gaze alighted on the Dragon man and she swerved towards him. He was with a minotaur standing at one of the guards camp sites that ringed the coliseum. For some reason, they never really ever left that place.

She nodded a greeting to the elf that stood guard, he was prudent enough to ignore her. She kept walking, her scales glittering green.

The dragon had that effect on her. One memory of his toxic breath was enough to cool her off. It worked almost every time. Almost.

Marching right up to him, she folded her arms, pointedly ignored the minotaur and stared at Drakon, "I want to fight. Not with you, never again and you told me to tell you whenever that happened."

She fairly bit the words out. If he hadn't been there, she would have gotten away with a quick win and some bruising on her knuckles from where she had beat the pulp out of something or someone.

His talk with GoldenDrakon was going well and was reaching the end when a green scaled humanoid of a creature put itself between the two.

Looking right over this creature, literally, he continued his conversation. "Do you have a place for me?"

"I will have a list of items by morning."

Fixing his gaze upon the intruder. "What manner of creature are you that also shows such a lack of manners and respect?"

Glancing back to GD, "Is this one of the others you are sending with me?"

GoldenDrakon calmly rolled up the precious map, remaining silent until the scroll had been replaced to its proper store, then his golden eyes rose to meet Ceres.

"No."

There was a moment of tense, akward silence while GD held the sharkwoman's attention.

"You are one of the finest combatants in the Hollow Ceres, and your skill has only improved since our first duel. But you are too quick to fight; and for the wrong reasons. You cannot beat your loss out of the others, nor they deserve your anger."

"You need a more constructive outlet for your energies. It just so happens that I have a mission for you. Ceres, meet Taljor. He has just recently come to the Illusion Vale and has agreed to help us in this quest."

"You will be going together."

Ceres snorted, she had already known the answer as soon as she had stopped asking. She shook her head and crossed her arms over each other, careful of the spikes that protruded from her forearms and her elbows. They were small now, blunted too, but could still hurt if one was careless. She had learned that the hard way.

She then took her own leisurely look over the minotaur. She skipped his muscles, looked intensely into his eyes and eyed the horns over his head. Again, she snorted.

"And where exactly am I going now?" her tone was impudent and her tapping foot was just plain rude.

GD paid no attention to the snark Ceres offered. The woman was tempermental, but the dragonman was used to her moods.

"I have located a salt deposit in the Wasteland, it must be secured. You know well out ecconimic situation. This salt could do us all a great service if we can gather it. To this end, I am assembling a team of four; you, Beowulf, Charlot and Taljor here."

"You may go wherever you wish Ceres." GD said in an even tone. "You are no slave or servant, but I do ask that you join this mission."

She simply rolled her eyes and nodded, once again rudely looking over Taljor and noting his entire body mass. "Fine... I guess I could tag along. Might find another spring somewhere..."

Her tone was only slightly grumpy and her tapping foot had ceased all movement.

"Since you asked so nicely."

Having not ignored the rudness of the humanoid-fish creature, Taljor took a step closer, using his massive bulk to cast a shadow while towering over her and intentionally making her feel small, then intentionally ignoring her presence.

"I would like to get with the others so we can plan appropriately and when do you wish us to leave?"

Knowing he had made her cold blood reach the brink of boiling, he took 1/2 a step back, made eye contact and in a very clear and very surprisingly calm voice, "I don't have nearly half the patience that GoldenDrakon has for you, anyone else or anything, so don't make an enemy before you get to know me."

Drakon's eyes flickered for a brief moment as he regarded the two.

"If you truely feel the need to prove your dominance over one another, then there is the Arena for such things." he said sharply. "But remember we have no healers among us, if you damage one another too greatly, then you are of no use to any of us for this mission.'

The Dragonman's eyes and voice were laced with authority as he spoke, although inwardly, he supressed a great sigh. So it often was among new commers to the Vale, and more prevelent among those of the Hollow, the need to express themselves through violence or exertion. It was for that very reason the Drakon had founded the Coliseium.

"Whatever you two are intending to do, settle it before sunrise. Be it by words, deeds or blood but settle it, for I will not risk the benifit of all Drake Valians on your temperments."