DnD Tales: The Adventures of Rynalla the Artificer

The History of a Traumatized Black Dragonkin; Death of Thurkham Firestand (1/5)

All black. Everything, everything.

Rynalla hatched on the night of a lunar eclipse in the workshop of a Mountain Dwarf Blacksmith by the name of Thurkam Firestand in the town of Blackpool; the dull black draconic egg having been initially mistaken for a fine chunk of raw Onyx stone among the decaying reeds and foul, stagnant water of a nearby swamp. To say the old Dwarven man was shocked when he came into his workshop the next morning to find a little Black Dragonborn hatchling sleeping among the rocks and bits of ore that he had gathered the previous day was an understatement. Because of the Dragonborn's uncharacteristic wings and tail, the Dwarf initially mistook her for an actual Black Dragon Hatchling until she stood up on two limbs instead of four.

Though initially quite shocked, the Dwarf decided to do his research in order to properly care for and raise the hatchling himself. Based on the research he did, the Dwarf was shocked that the Black Dragonborn hatchling- more accurately called a Dragonkin- managed to survive and hatch despite her egg not being submerged in a pool of acid. With the help of a local Red Dragonborn who was simply named Blazeteeth, Thurkham was able to come up with a name for his adopted daughter; Rynalla Onyxfang; the last name Onyx signifying how Thurkham mistook Rynalla's egg for a chunk of raw Onyx stone- as well as her shining black scales- while fang was chosen to signify the hatchling's impressively sharp teeth.

The odd father-daughter pair lived peacefully together for nine years- with the old Dwarf teaching his adopted daughter where to find various metals and how to shape them to her liking- until one fateful Summer day while the pair were out enjoying the nice weather and a lovely picnic.

Two hours after they had finished setting up their picnic in a local park, a female High Elf who had shown up to the park around half an hour after the Dwarf-Dragonkin pair had arrived and had been wandering around since, approached the odd pair; a nice-looking bow and a quiver full of arrows that had been fletched with five different colors of feathers; red, green, blue, white, and black- strapped across her back. She introduced herself to the pair as Elowen Heifaren; an adventurer who was in search of directions for the next town over and claimed that no one had been kind enough to give her directions.

Ever the kind soul, Thurkham passed a homemade sandwich to the High Elf and began to give her directions; even going so far as to tell the elf about a short cut that he himself had discovered during his travels to sell his wares. Once the Dwarf had finished giving the High Elf directions and handed Rynalla a fresh, homemade sandwich, the elf swiftly readied her bow and shot a black-fletched arrow into the Dwarf's chest at close range; the Dwarf didn't even cry out as the acid-tipped arrow buried itself deep in his heart.

As the man who had raised her laid on the picnic blanket next to her- slowly dying from the corrosive acid that was eating away at his still-beating heart- urged her to run and not look back, something inside the freshly traumatized Dragonkin hatchling snapped and instead, she had come at the old Dwarf's murderer; previously purple eyes glowing bright green and teeth bared in an anguished rage while a stream of corrosive acid was building in the specialized pouch at the back of her throat. Only one word began to resound in her head:

Kill.

The murderer wasn't expecting the hatchling to react so quickly and had just fumbled with notching a blue-fletched arrow for the unexpected Dragonkin right before Rynalla's serrated teeth amazingly found their way into the elf's soft throat. Corrosive acid mixed with the hatchling's saliva and began to rapidly eat away at any enemy tissue that it came into contact with. The moment the elf's blood touched the Dragonkin's tongue, something primal deep within the youngster snapped. Feeling nothing but raw anger and pure hatred, Rynalla buried her teeth deeper into her prey's neck and relished greatly in the salty, metallic taste of her victim's blood and in her screams as her flesh melted and sizzled from the Dragonkin's corrosive acid. So engrossed in the killing was the Black Dragonkin that it took two passing Goliaths (a Barbarian and a Paladin) to pull her off of the now severely mangled female High Elf's corpse.