Published on The Moon Breaker (http://moonbreaker.info)
Book 1- The Salvation of Korthos
Korthos must not fall! It must not.
Do you realize what the consequences are if Korthos Island falls? No of course you don't. How could you? Only those who can understand the Prophecy can see what will happen. But I will tell you this- if Korthos Island falls, the chain of events will be nearly impossible to stop.
What are you going to do about this?
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Preface- The Dragon That Was
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Arboth the Kobold hardly noticed the pebbles that hit his small, scaly back. What finally got his attention were the giggles and taunts of the three young kobolds crouched on top of the high but crumbling wall that made up the ruined island fortress that was his home.
"Gonna hit us with fire breath, Arboth? Kobold soooo scared!" cried one of the young thugs. "Cra-zy Ar-both! Old Ar-both the Dragon and his shinies!"
Arboth glanced up at the small, lizardy creatures, barely two feet tall, and decided they would bore of their game soon enough if he ignored them. He continued stacking his firewood for the day.
He had not claimed to be a dragon for generations, but Arboth the Dragon was a favorite story in the kobold camps. The younger ones often dared each other to harass the old kobold, he knew. He regretted ever telling the old ones of his history and his plight. They were only kobolds; they could never understand what he had been through.
He no longer visited the kobold settlements on the 'big' island at all, preferring to be alone on his little island in the shallow waters. His fortress had no roof and one of the old stone walls had huge gaping holes in it, but the fortress gave him a place to secure his tent and build his fire, protected from the winds that blew in from the Thunder Sea.
Another pebble smacked him, this one in the side of the head. It didn't hurt but when he glanced at the missile they had thrown at him, he realized they were actually throwing dragonshard fragments from his hoard, not pebbles. That made him angry.
"Go away!" he barked at the youngsters. His voice was odd for a kobold, deep and resonating but creaky with age.
The youngsters snorted and laughed, raising their arms for another taunt. Suddenly, with a chorus of yelps and yarks, they scurried away.
Arboth grunted and stooped to gather the fragments. These dragonshard fragments only had partial runes on them, but every runed dragonshard held part of the puzzle. At some point, he would combine them to see if he could recreate the full runes, but that had to be done at a special stone in the city. It was a trip fraught with danger for a kobold, so he only went once a year.
The Prophecy was recorded on those stones, both its history and its future. Much of it did not make sense to him, but he was compelled to collect the shards and study the runes. It was all that mattered to him.
As he returned the shards to their pile behind his tent, he realized what had driven the young thugs away; there was splashing and yelling coming from the ocean nearby. Someone was fighting the rust monsters that lived in the bay. Arboth moved to the arched doorway and looked out over the water, shielding his eyes against the glare of the midday sun with a wrinkled, greenish-brown hand. He watched a young human male, breathing heavily as he struggled through the shallow water that separated his island from the "big" island, turn and cast a powerful lightning chain at the attacking creatures. The huge red monsters slumped into the water, lifeless.
