Foreword

I'm Drakon. As my father was a bard who loved stories, I’ve decided to start chronicling my life. I will mostly be writing in first person, but some of my friends have shown some interest and have asked if they could help, so there will be an occasional chapter from their viewpoint. One of my friends is now a teacher so she asked if I wouldn't mind adding some extra info, or sub-chapters here and there. She wants to experiment with using the stories as a teaching aid to help get the less academically inclined interested in learning. These chapters are optional, but again might be worth reading as the story itself is first person it might help with the greater context of things.

PROLOGUE

I will start the story eighteen years ago, the same year I was born. The great sea-land war ended after two thousand years. After it was found out that were-sharks were the ones stoking the flames of war between the sea-born races like the shahuagin, snoblins (sea-goblins), and other deep-sea races on one side. And the coastal races, like the merfolk, sea elves, and all the land-based races on the other side. The war cut off a lot of continents from each other as deep-sea travel became impossible.

The specifics of the final battle are unknown as it ended with a gigantic underwater explosion that sent tidal waves all over the known world devastating coastal cities.

After that battle, it took about five or six years for the rebuilding efforts to be far enough along that expeditions were planned to find out what happened to the other continents.

Picking the story back up when I was eight years old.

The ships had been docked for a few hours at the town of Haven. It would be the last stop before making the crossing to one of the lost continents. My parents were two of the expedition leaders.

It was very plain when you saw all three of us together that they weren't my birth parents. My mom was a tall broad human woman wearing full plate and carrying a big war hammer. She was a battle priestess who venerated the whole Norse pantheon. Her powers to have some control over the weather would be a great boon on the voyage.

My father was a werewolf. Unlike some of the ancient human myths, werewolves cannot turn you by biting you. Werewolves are only born naturally. In his human form, he looked just like a human with brown hair and average height and build. He was a bard and could often be found entertaining the children of the expedition with stories or playing his guitar. When it was needed he had two extra forms. A hybrid when he grew about two feet with fur everywhere and a wolf's head. His guitar, which was a magical item, would transform into a gigantic axe.

His last form was that of a white-furred wolf the size of a horse. I've heard stories of my mom riding him into battle during some of the battles in the war.

I was a thin little kid with jet black hair end pale white skin. Even though I looked like a stiff breeze would knock me over, as both my parents were adventurers and war-veterans I’ve been taught various forms of self-defence. With my parents being a part of the expedition leadership and in charge of its defence. I took it upon myself to be the defender for the expedition’s children. My parents thought it was cute.

I spent the day walking around town, happy to be off the ship for a bit. Haven was a new town, built just for being the last stop most expeditions would use on their voyage east. As such it was mostly built on a grid, and you could see that whole neighbourhoods were built in one go instead of growing organically. As it was on the eastern side of one of the human kingdoms over ninety percent of the inhabitants were human. The streets were wide with cobblestone and seemed to have good drainage.

The further away from the harbour, you got the better the smell became. A good indication that the town had a sewer system that drained into the sea.

As I was just about to head back towards the ship I heard a commotion down an alleyway to my right. I saw a half-orc boy of about my age, that I recognised as one of the kids from the ship I was on. He had his back to the wall and a group of 4 human kids surrounded him. They looked to be a few years older, but as the half-orc was very big for his age there wasn't much height difference.

When I got closer, I could hear them saying things like, “half-breed” and “we should teach you a lesson”. The half-orc didn't look too worried, I only found out years later that he just didn't want to hurt the kids.

I ran up shouting “Get away from one of my people ass wipes”. The one who I presumed to be the ringleader turned to me hand on hips puffing his chest out and said “what are you going to do about it pipsqueak”

So I did what any underdog should do in a fight. Not stopping and using the run-up I kicked him in the nuts as hard as I could. The kids' eyes almost bulged out of his head and he grabbed his balls anf=d fell on the ground whimpering. As soon as I did that the half-orc grabbed the heads of two of the other kids and knocked them together. The last kid turned white and ran away.

The half-orc said, “Let's get out of here, the guy you kicked said that he was the mayors' son.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea.” And the two of us quickly made our way back to the ship. When we got there we made our way down to the hold.

“My name is Drakon by the way, what’s yours?”

“I’m Grim.” He replied. “I’ve seen you around the ship. My parents joined in as guards on the ship at the last port we were at. As in orc tradition, those who spill blood together have the right to call each other brother.”

And with that I and Grim became inseparable. Nothing about the fight ever made it back to the ship. I figured if he was really the mayors' son he probably didn't want it known that a kid half his size took him down.

A couple of days later we were underway. Most of the voyage was uneventful and after two months at sea, we finally saw land on the horizon. A couple of days later than expected when going by old charts. It looked like most of the coast were sailing towards was an almost straight line of high cliffs. Like someone snapped the continent in half. We were still a few days sailing away so that should tell you something about the scale of the cliffs.

Just after nightfall, we heard shouting and fighting from the deck. As I was told to stay below decks this is the tale that was told to me later.

A shahuagin and snoblin raiding party attacked the fleet just as a storm hit. They had a few Kraken that they were using as mounts to attack the ships. My mom, dad and Grim’s parents were up on deck helping with the defence. As we were the flagship the raiding party leaders and the biggest Kraken focused on our ship.

My dad and Grim’s parents were cut down but the raid leaders before the rest of the guards and adventurers onboard repelled the boarding party.

At one point the Kraken wrapped a tentacle around our main mast trying to snap it off. My mom knew that she had to stop it before that happened. She leapt off the side of the ship and invoking her gods she slammed down on the Kraken's head just as a lightning bolt erupted from the sky and hit her war-hammer. Everyone on board was suddenly blinded by the bright flash. And when their sight returned my mom and the Kraken were nowhere left to be seen.

With the raid repelled the fleet limped towards the shore. When we got close enough a few harpies that were on board were able to start scouting for a landing spot. After a few days heading down the coast, they found what looked to be a sinkhole about half a mile inland. It had an almost perfect round shape like a big crater and the water looked deep enough that the whole fleet could easily fit inside. So with the help of a few earth-mages that were on board, we carved a cave wide, deep, and tall enough that the ships could pass through.

That crater would quickly become the harbour of Storm Cove. A lighthouse was built on top of the cliff above the cave so even at night people would be able to find the entrance. Alcoves inside the cave itself had everburning torches placed to make it easy to get through. Some of the more damaged ships were dismantled and used to make the harbour buildings and piers. Earthmages carved a switchback in the rim of the crater on the inland side. And on top, a town was founded and expanded upon in the coming years.

Grim and I were put into an orphanage founded by the adventurers guild, and was quickly expanded to also become a boarding school for the children of adventurers who had taken on missions too dangerous to be brought along.