I am a dragon! Help me! (TOME 4 of the TIAMAT'S WARS SERIE)

THERE ARE PEOPLE! WHAT SHOULD I DO?

OHE?, OHE? Anybody home?

From a tower killer hole, I saw a couple and a child on the cart containing goods.

"My horses are tired, can I take water from the well to drink?

You are the new inhabitants? I see that the ruin has been repaired as well as the inn and the smokehouse."

I answered through the door:

"Take whatever you want, but don't hurt me out of pity." I replied through the door.

"My name is Henri and this is my wife Juliette. We are going north to sell spices and trinkets from the southern valleys.

The place here is very dangerous! There is a dragon here that destroyed the village about a year ago."

"I won't hurt you, I have no weapons."

No," I said, "I am very ugly and I might scare you with my appearance. But you can sleep in the inn. There is just a hearth and a roof and the well.

Henri, just what I need.

Me, it's Marc.

Henry: Ah a Christian name! You are a Christian? because sometimes there are barbarians and Visigoths who destroy our villages.

Yes, I am and I know my prayers.

Henri: Ah, that's reassuring! But for the pilgrims passing through here, there was a chapel, I remember.

Me: It burned down, there is nothing left, but I will rebuild it in the coming days.

Mr. Henri, what year is it again? I am very distracted these days.

We are in 620!

Crying...

Are you all right, Marc?

Leave me alone! I've lost everything!

If you want, there are other orphans in the village and a priest will come to bless the chapel if you have rebuilt it when we come back here in two weeks. If you know how to fish or hunt, we can exchange the dried meat for spices and flour, but I see that there is a mill here, if it works, you can have flour and make your bread.

If you don't want to show yourself, it's nothing, we'll put the cart in the entrance, close the doors and you put down what you want and we'll load what you bring. Here is a scroll with what we buy from the hunters and the equivalent value in gold. Each trader uses these barter sheets to trade with trappers who can't read.

Spices and seeds of medicinal plants I would like and know where there is salt.

Oh, the salt, before there was the mine but it is guarded by a ferocious dragon that ravages the surroundings.

Fifty people lived here last year and it killed almost everyone. It's a black dragon!

It spits acid and attacks at night when the moon doesn't shine. It has ravaged our farms even though the forest is full of game and even with human sacrifices, as an offering it has continued. He kills for pleasure. He even spoke! He said he loved to make his victims suffer so that the flesh was full of adrenaline and the taste was better. He loved to hear the cracking of his victims' skulls when he made them scream in pain. A real monster.

There are almost no men left in the country because the soldiers have almost all been killed by the dragons and the farmers are fleeing the fields where they are prime targets.

Famine reigns and food is scarce yet abundant.

Is it worth a dead dragon?

Extremely, but no one has yet managed to kill one.