Last Quest

Chapter 1: Dravon Nivereth

The night was quickly approaching the small northern village of Oakliff. A soft fog was covering the crimson, rusted rooftops, and silence was broken only by the occasional sounds of nocturnal creatures from the surrounding pine forest. Owls perched on the tall trees, looking down in search of prey. Cloudy yellow eyes stared out from the thick bush, and muffled songs echoed from somewhere between the cozy houses. A pale, old woman was collecting a bucket from one of the wells near the village edge when she saw a group of seven Vorhlom soldiers, heavily armored, draped in bronze-colored cloaks bearing the emblem of a dark green scale, mark of the crown, ruling from the capital city of Lanmort, far down in the south. The group was probably sent to tend to business in one of the large northern cities, located in the mountains. The men walked through the gates, hoping to find a steaming meal and warm rest in Lukvium Inn, a building as old as the war itself, which is probably where its Cranonian name originated. It suited Oakliff, as it was one of many northern villages built in the Old Rule.

The gates opened once more that night, and out of the fog walked another cloaked figure—this time a familiar face in the village. A tired man wearing a dark brown cloak. He was in his mid-twenties, his hair was black and wavy and his short beard made him look slightly older. His eyes were a muted shade of gold, a trait all Cranonians possessed. His name was Dravon Nivereth. He had lived in Oakliff for most of his life, arriving as a lost and hopeless child. His home, Turnemor, was one of the last standing Cranonian cities, located south, near the capital. It was walled from all sides, and in the middle of it stood a tall beige castle that reached the clouds above, casting a shadow on the west side of the city every morning. Dravon would visit the castle as a child. It was not being used as a place for living anymore but as a museum of sorts. The walls were decorated with paintings of old royalty and their dragons. In the corridors, there were many traditional Cranonian armors displayed, decorated with symbols of wings, and horns to resemble the dragons. He was generally accepted and liked in the small village, but most of its residents did not know of his Cranonian descent, as many of them had never left the walls of their village and did not care much for the world beyond. As Dravon walked the cobblestone streets, he turned toward the Lukvium Inn. His days never seemed to be filled with much, but he could, on most days, convince himself that he was fairly happy with the life he led. This was not one of those days, as his life seemed emptier than ever before. No family to guide him, or friends to trust. All he had to remind him of home was an old inn built during the time when his people, who he knew little about, were royals—peacekeeping kings and queens of Vorhlom. And yet, two centuries after their fall, one of the last of them was aimlessly wandering the gloomy streets of a forgotten village at the cold end of the world.

The tavern was beaming with life. The golden glow from the two big front windows offered a warm and welcoming greeting. An old heroic song could be heard even through the thick wooden walls, performed by a blonde-haired, thin, middle-aged man who had been the only bard in Oakliff since Dravon had first arrived in the village. Inside, the tavern's fireplace was cooking meats from the local market, with people sitting around it, drinking and talking. Dravon thought about sitting on one of the benches, but that thought quickly vanished as he noticed the men in bronze-colored cloaks facing away from him, laughing and spilling ale all over the benches and fire. Instead, he settled for a single seat in the furthest possible corner from the soldiers. For a moment, he wondered why a group like that would be in a village that didn't even appear on many maps, but as he poured ale into his mouth, he quickly realized he didn't care enough to exhaust his mind over it. He had never been fond of the crown. As he saw it, while it wasn't directly responsible for the Cranonians' demise, it certainly never seemed to care about their killings. After the war, the Cranonians were left to battle a radical enemy that saw them as a plague. This enemy had taken Dravon's family and the families of many others in Turnemor. They never had a definitive name, but most people called them "trosun," a Cranonian word meaning "burnt." The Trosun varied in their descent and backgrounds. Some had joined the cause in recent years, while others had been in it for generations. Some were human, some elvish or terner, some more beast than man. Some came from the far eastern lands and couldn't be categorized from a Vorhlomian perspective.

Even now, Dravon didn't know how he had been the one to escape the attack on his home. All he could remember was waking up to screams and chaos outside, running out of his house with his black dragon egg, an artifact from the old rule, passed down from generation to generation in many Cranonian families. As Dravon ran through the streets with the egg, all he saw was despair and tragedy. The people he had once seen talking and working on the streets now lay lifeless in their own blood, their bodies covered in ash and rubble. He saw the giant beige gate towers that once promised safety crumble into piles of stone. His eyes shut tight. The next time they opened, he was walking through a cold, dense forest with a small dragon, no bigger than a raven, following his every step. He later named the red dragon Melrytos, after a hero from a long-forgotten song.

As Dravon was caught up in his thoughts, trying to drown them with tasteless northern ale and mulling over the same questions he had been asking since first arriving in Oakliff, he failed to notice a hooded figure—a tall, older man holding a walking stick—enter the tavern. He also didn't notice that one of the soldiers had been looking at him. Most Cranonians couldn't be easily distinguished from other Vorhlomians outside of their golden eyes, which the man noticed. Dravon planned to get up, leave, and put an end to this unpleasant day, but before he could, the soldier rose from his seat and headed toward him. "You are not a northerner, are you?" the soldier sarcastically remarked in a raspy voice, the rest of the men laughed from their sitting place.

Dravon looked up at him, leaned back in his chair, and drunkenly and loudly answered, "Well, I don't think you are either, are you?" The tavern quieted down as people looked in the direction of the scene.

The soldier now felt humiliated by his mocking tone. "Are you even aware of who you are talking to, you drunken fool?" the soldier asked. Dravon did not respond but got up and walked by the man, trying to leave. The soldier, not yet feeling satisfied with the confrontation, tried to grab his arm, slipping and falling behind him in the process. Seeing this, his companions stood up and ran towards Dravon, who shut the door behind him as he dashed out into the cold air. He ran toward the gate, behind him, the seven men followed, slowed by their armor but determined to catch him. As he crossed the open gate and found himself in the forest, this now did not seem like the wisest plan. As he tripped and collapsed to the ground, he looked back, hoping the pursuers had given up. To his surprise, they had—or so he thought, until he saw one of the men running back to the village, and heard the screams of another from the opposite direction. He hadn't realized how far into the forest he had gone, to the point where he could no longer see the village lights through the thick shadows of the trees. As he began to grasp the gravity of the situation, the screams stopped, and the forest became eerily quiet. No owls hooted, no mice dug through the dirt, and even the crickets and cicadas were silent. Meanwhile, the soldier that had escaped ran back to the tavern, bursting inside in a panic and screaming about a terrible beast lurking behind the trees. The guests, who were almost all locals of Oakliff and had never seen a creature fiercer than a house cat, began to panic. Fear spread across the building. Some were brave enough to run back to their homes. Some grabbed dining cutlery, hoping it would offer protection. Others started locking the windows and doors, but not before the hooded man from earlier managed to leave the tavern.