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Race: Draconian

Bloodline Powers: Improved Strength+, Rending, Firebreath+

Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 6, Wind (Noble) 4, Sound (Advanced) 2

Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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The wind howled with the keen of a banshee, pelting Samazzar’s bare scales with grains of sand. He raised the temperature around himself, struggling against the bitter cold of the peak. It took twice as much effort as normal to keep his body warm, as if he were trying to call on the mystery of heat from a great distance.

Samazzar clenched his eyes shut, trying his hardest to ignore the torrent of ice that ricocheted off of his tender scales. At first the sensation had been pleasant, the fine specks of ice cleaning the dirt and grime that had accumulated on his climb up to Lonely Peak. Now? He could already feel blood leaking between the gaps in his scales, irritated by the motes of ice that were steadily melting in the warm aura that he had wrapped around himself like a coat.

He clenched his jaw, tuning out his senses one by one until the only thing that was left was his will. Samazzar reached out once again, brushing his mystical senses through the cloudy sky.

Wind rushed past him, singing as it passed. He pushed his perception deeper into the mysteries, reveling in the symphony of sound and wind as another gale wracked Lonely Peak.

Almost.

The mysteries were there, whispering to him even as they wracked his body. Samazzar hadn’t experienced anything like it without the aid of a catalyst. It was like experiencing the intensity of a baptism, but without the need to constantly goad and prod the mysteries into boiling over.

Something tingled in the back of his mind. He could feel the epiphany there, hidden beneath layers of doubt and obfuscation, but no matter how hard Samazzar focused, it was just out of his reach.

More than that, the mysteries of wind and sound weren’t the only ones lingering on Lonely Peak. Ice, water, and electricity. Samazzar could feel all of them brooding dangerously in the ever present storm clouds that choked the summit.

Part of him, the dragon, eyed them with hunger. More magic and mysteries would only improve his hoard. Unfortunately, it seems that they were not fated to join his trove. When Samazzar reached out for them, the mysteries skittered away, present but distant. It was like sitting at a banquet when he was completely full. The food looked delicious, but he could not force himself to eat another bite.

The wind howled harder, almost toppling Samazzar out of his seated position. He bit deep into his lower lip, trying his hardest to focus on the sensation of the air on his scales and the scream of the gale as it tore through the mountain passes.

Almost.

He let out a breath, opening his eyes to watch it fog and then blow away the instant it left the cloak of heat that Samazzar kept around himself. Standing up, he groaned in pain as his tender scales pressed against each other.

A cocoon of wind snapped into being around Samazzar, deflecting the neverending gales that assaulted Lonely Peak as he reached down and pulled his carefully folded shirt from the snow where he had been sitting on it. One quick snap cleared the ice and debris from it, and he slipped it over his aching body with a wince.

Samazzar took a final longing glance at the storm. Part of him wanted to spread his wings and throw himself into the storm, to ride higher on the currents until the ice and thunder destroyed him or he reached another level of understanding in his mysteries.

He wasn’t ready. As much as it galled him to admit it, his knowledge of the mysteries hadn’t yet reached the point where he was ready for a baptism. True, he could try to push past his lack of knowledge with the strength of his baptism, but given the number of other mysteries at play, that would likely lead to Samazzar’s death.

Instead, he would have to learn a dragon’s patience. He began walking down the narrow path that he had blazed to the peak in the last two months. A dragon knew when to act, but they also knew when to conserve their strength and grow, sleeping for months if not years at a time atop their hoard.

Snow crunched under his feet, barely audible over the wind at the peak. He might not be ready yet, but that would not always be the case. There was something about the energies at the peak that made it as good a natural spot to study wind as the heart of a volcano for the mystery of fire.

He winced, looking down at the narrow bands of blood slowly seeping through his shirt. Unfortunately, any epiphany would have to wait. The peak might be as good an incubator as a volcano, but it was just as dangerous. If he pushed himself any harder, Samazzar wouldn’t need to launch himself into the winds to assure his death, exposure would handle that for him.

One foot fell in front of the other and the snow level rose as Samazzar trekked away from the winds that swept the mountain clean. It was too much work to use his heat to melt his way through, so instead Samazzar held it close, keeping himself from catching a chill as he struggled and trudged his way down from the peak.

It took two days to return to Union City, enough time that Samazzar ran out of jerky and had to hunt. It was almost unsporting. The doe didn’t even know that he was two hundred paces away when fire fell upon it from above, searing it to death before it could make it more than a dozen steps.

When he finally made it back to the kobold encampment, munching cheerily on a charred haunch of venison, it was almost sundown. Two months had fundamentally changed the ‘city.’ It still had a long way to go before it resembled even a district from Vereton, but at this point Samazzar was comfortable calling it a village. One half finished longhouse had turned into four, along with a stone building where Dussok was building a smithy. In between the buildings was a net of reeds and grass that provided shade, and hid the scurrying kobolds from the sight of any passing stormcrows.

The fields around the buildings were teeming with activity. It was impossible to camouflage them the way they had the buildings themselves, so Green Cliff huntresses kept careful watch, horns at ready, to sound the alarm if a stormcrow was sighted flying overhead.

Samazzar took another bite of venison, nodding in approval at the herd of goats as a pair of kobolds with sticks ran back and forth thwapping the semi-feral animals on their butts in order to push them toward a crude barn for the evening. On the hillside next to the goat pasture, rows and rows of berry bushes poked up out of the soil. Unripe gooseberries hung from the shrub’s branches, still a week or so from harvest.

Lower down on the slope vast fields of wood grass poked up from freshly tilled soil. Its progress was disappointingly slow, but from what he’d learned from the Dirt Gulch shamans, it made up for that speed with robustness. Once wood grass was planted, it was practically a weed. From there, it was just a matter of periodically harvesting some of the stalk's roots while letting the rest of the field spread.

“So you finally grace us with your presence.” Takkla’s voice floated down from above a half second before she landed next to him. “Some chief you are, spinning stories about the utopia you’re going to build, issuing orders to everyone and then disappearing for a month.”

“Isn’t that what chiefs are supposed to do?” Samazzar asked, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “Didn’t Duromak spend most of his time eating the little real food the tribe had while chasing after females?”

“Don’t use him as an example,” Takkla snapped. “He was a waste of scales and a disgrace. The four tribes want more than a layabout as their leader. They want an inspiring figure that will give them hope.”

Samazzar shrugged, ears perking up as he noted the rhythmic clanging of a hammer beating steel. He shifted his course slightly, angling toward the smithy.

“Progressing in the mysteries should accomplish that,” he replied, nodding at a pair of kobolds that ran past him with wicker baskets filled with sticks. “After all, what’s more inspiring than a leader that can command the very winds?”

“Personally?” Takkla said dryly, “a leader that actually takes charge and is present for his people. “It would be nice, but we don’t actually need you hoisting logs or thatching roofs. You should be here to oversee the actual construction. The kobolds need to know you’re watching over them. It will make them less lazy, but more than that it will make them feel more safe. You know how they are, jumping at every shadow unless they know there’s someone strong enough to protect them in the next room.”

He cocked his head to the side, brain whirring for a second before Samazzar finally nodded.

“That makes sense,” he said thoughtfully. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to settle down in the village just yet. There are too many things that need to be done, and most of them involve leaving the foothills.”

“Of course,” Samazzar continued, smiling toothily at Takkla as he offered her a bite from his venison haunch, “I will make a point of spending longer periods of time at home. Things have developed to the point that I can start building an alchemist lab. Right now we’re doing everything from Tazzaera’s old set up in the cave. When I was younger, it seemed like she had every ingredient and every tool, but now after Vereton-”

“I know,” Takkla replied sourly. “It’s hard to go back to shaping wood tools with particularly sharp pieces of rock now that Vereton has spoiled us.”

“Don’t worry too much.” Samazzar had to raise his voice over the steady clang of Dussok’s hammer as he pushed aside the deer hide soaked in water that passed for the smithy’s door. “We’ll have better tools and creature comforts soon. They might not be up to human standards, but as powerful as the humans are, they’ve grown weak. There’s something about a soft bed at night and a comfortable carriage ride to work that makes you lose focus on how hard the world really is. There isn’t any time for intrigue and scheming when the mountains want to take everything from you.”

“Good, you’re here,” Dussok grunted. “Tweak the fire, I need it hot enough to mold untreated iron without melting it.”

The big draconian was shirtless, his body soaked with water from a nearby bucket to keep him from overheating while he worked. While it was true that he could use his magic to maintain a constant temperature around himself, that was focus that he couldn’t use on his work.

Samazzar brushed aside the kobold that was working the bellows, a face he barely recognized from the Mineral Spring tribe. Two pumps of air later, the coals were glowing a cherry red, and Samazzar’s attention reached out, tweaking the heat and oxygen levels inside the forge as Dussok shoved in what looked like a large frying pan covered in small bolts of metal.

He redirected the heat, guiding as much of it as possible into the chunks of iron. After only fifteen seconds, they were glowing a bright orange that rivaled the charcoal of the fire.

Dussok hissed, muscles bulging as he pulled the metal from the fire. With swift movements, he picked up a pair of tongs and moved the first iron slug to his anvil. Dussok shifted his grip, holding the glowing iron in place with tongs in his left hand while picking up his hammer with his right.

Once again the room was filled with clanging as the big draconian beat and better the barely pliable metal into shape, dropping it into a nearby water basin and grabbing the next iron rod. Samazzar kept his focus on the remaining iron, maintaining the temperature so that it wouldn’t need to be reheated.

Ten minutes later, Dussok was done. He reached down into the barrel of water, pulling out a handful of iron spikes with one hand while splashing water over himself with the other. They clanked as he tossed them on the anvil.

“A far cry from our work in Vereton,” Dussok said with a chuckle. “Nobody out here needs swords made with fancy metal or breastplates that can stop a spear. I miss the artistry of our time with Etanne, but it’s pointless and frivolous out beyond the boundaries of civilization. We don’t have much iron, so our priorities are clear. Hammers, saws and nails. As soon as I explained what a plough was, the farmers wanted one, but without a mine we just don’t have enough metal for that.”

“They’re just whining anyway,” Takkla replied dismissively. “Dirt Gulch’s other shaman, Totta, studies the mystery of soil. She’s the reason they were able to dig burrows so efficiently, and she’s been an immeasurable help around the village. Without her, it would have taken at least a week to dig our well, and we probably wouldn’t have been able to till the woodgrass fields without her help. It still took her a week and left her looking like we had drained the life out of her to churn all of that dirt, but a plough is more of a future than a present concern, especially because we only have kobolds to pull it.”

Samazzar nodded thoughtfully, a clawed finger tapping against his chin as he processed Takkla’s speech.

“Is there anything else I should know about?” Samazzar asked. “I’ve only really come back down for food, and even then I haven’t had time to pay attention to how Union City is doing before I returned to Lonely Peak.”

“Rosyl, the shaman from Mineral Spring, is close to figuring out bricks,” Takkla replied. “It seems that wood grass is even better than straw for baking bricks. At least that’s what Crone Tazzaera says.”

“Tazzaera and Rosyl are trying to figure out the right mix and temperature for cooking the bricks,” Takkla continued, shrugging helplessly. “Apparently Tazzaera had been working on memorizing various melting and boiling points while in Vereton as part of her research into advancing past the sixth stage of fire. It sounds like she didn’t make much progress on the mystery itself, but it has given her a bit of a shortcut on helping us find a building material that isn’t as flammable and prone to wood rot as logs.”

“That’s good,” Samazzar responded, nodding to himself. “I know it has been hard on the kobolds to move the logs too. Bricks might be heavy, but they’re smaller and easier to carry. I suspect that switching our production will be better for everyone once we figure out how the humans have managed it.”

“Other than that,” Takkla picked up where she left off without any hitch, “things have been going pretty smoothly. Construction is slow, but constant. As you said, kobolds are small so it is hard for them to chop down and transport larger trees for the longhouses. The gathering teams are finding scraps of iron here and there, but we haven’t been able to find any seams of iron or coal to start a proper mine. Meanwhile, the hunters, gatherers and herders are keeping everyone fed. Things might get a little lean during the winter, but so long as we dry the berries and manage to catch some game during the colder months, everything will likely work out.”

“Have you considered putting Barsa on the prospecting teams?” Samazzar asked. “I’m not sure how exactly it works, but he has a bloodline gift that might be helpful. Certainly more useful than sending a bunch of kobolds that can’t tell iron from ochre into the dark to poke around with pointy sticks.”

“That could do the trick,” Takkla replied thoughtfully. “He’s in charge of a lot of the farming right now, but I’ll have to talk to him about a change in pace. The village is going to need iron and coal if it’s going to grow, and I’d bet all of my scales that we’ll be able to find some in the deep caverns if we search enough.”

Dussok grabbed another handful of iron ingots, throwing them back onto the heating dish before nodding at Samazzar and shoving it into the forge. A couple pumps of the bellows later and they were beginning to glow merrily.

“What are your plans anyway?” Dussok questioned, not looking away from his work. “Are you heading back up to Lonely Peak once you grab some food? If not, we could sure use you around here. There’s a lot to do and there are only so many hands that have the magic and experience to get it done.”

“I’m done with Lonely Peak for now,” Samazzar replied bitterly. “Takkla should give it a try at some point, but I think that I’ve learned everything I could there for the moment. I need to spend some time digesting what I’ve picked up.”

He winced as the fabric of his shirt brushed across his still sore scales.

“More than that, I think my body needs some rest. I’ve been keeping myself going with healing ointments and energizing potions, but at some point they start to lose their effectiveness due to overuse. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have any choice but to take it easy for a couple of weeks.”

“That’s blood on your shirt,” Takkla noted sharply, leaning in. “I thought it was dirt at first, but I should have known better. Of course you’d push yourself until you were covered in blood. I swear, I’ll need to talk to Crone Tazzaera about brewing something to knock you out. That’s the only way we can be sure that the little dragon will get a full night’s sleep.”

“Hey now!” Samazzar exclaimed, backing away from Takkla and waving his hands. “There’s no need for that. I’m not quite ready to settle down in Union City yet, but I’ve been asking around and I think I’ve figured out what my next step will be.”

“Oh.” Takkla said grumpily, crossing her arms as she glared at Samazzar. “Tell me your latest excuse to get out of doing your proper duties as chief.”

“This is actually part of my duties as chief.” Even as he said them, Samazzar felt that the words were halfhearted. It was hard to escape Takkla’s judgment, and even being right wouldn’t offer much protection. “I”ve been talking with a couple of the tribes, and their tribute will be due sooner or later. I don’t particularly care about the goblin tribe down on the plains, but Dirt Gulch had some dealings with the forest folk. They don’t interact with the outside world much, but it sounds like they pay tribute to the same orc tribe as everyone else. It might be difficult to work something out with them, but unlike a lot of the other races that live in the mountains, they’re a fairly peaceful and industrious lot.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard much about the forest folk,” Takkla remarked thoughtfully, barely audible over the renewed clanging of Dussok’s hammer. “I know someone in Vereton accused another person of having a parent that was one of the forest folk and that was treated as a grave insult, but beyond that, their name is just a word to me.”

“I don’t know a whole lot either,” Samazzar replied. “I know that they’re secretive and prone to fleeing rather than fighting. More than that, they have a natural affinity for planting and growing crops in the low light of the forest undergrowth as well as taming wild animals. They don’t exactly have skills that the humans would appreciate, but for us an alliance would be incredibly useful. I doubt they have many iron tools, and if we could trade those for new crops or herd animals, we could make Union City self-sufficient within the month.”

“Fine,” Takkla said grudgingly. “I’ll admit that forging a trade treaty with a nearby tribe counts as chiefly behavior. It still feels like you’re trying to duck your duties, but I’ll allow it this time.”