Dragonspire

This story started just for a contest but I may expand and edit it to become a book. For now enjoy and thanks.

             The Dragons were circling above. Elias looked around for a spot to shelter. He noticed a small copse of trees and ran over to it, ducking beneath their low lying limbs. He glanced up at the sky and saw that the ten gleaming Dragons were slowly descending towards the daydreaming woman. He would not let them have her, after all he was Elias Danera, descendant of the great Davan Melocian Danera, Slayer of countless Dragons, and most famed hero in all of the Dragonpire empire. But he had told himself that a million times and this time it didn't make him feel any braver. Still he could not let them have her; so he clumsily unsheathed the sword and charged at the Dragons who were just sweeping in towards the helpless woman. He charged for fame. He charged for glory. He charged for the helpless woman. He charged for life itself. He charged to show these Dragon who they are messing with. He tripped. As he flew towards the ground the last thing he saw was the woman standing up, embracing the Dragon who had set down beside her. How strange? His head met a large rock. Darkness.

             He woke in a strange place. He looked left and there was a stone wall. He looked up and there was another stone wall. Slowly he turned his head and looked up and...There was a stone wall! His breathing increased double time and he started shaking violently. He hated enclosed spaces. He was shaking so hard he did not notice the horrible monster that had crept up beside him. When he did notice, he screamed. It was a troll! But Davan Melocian Danera had finished the last of that horrible race, he was sure. The troll leaned towards him and said..!

             "Nice to meet you, my names Bobby, whats your's?" For a moment Elias just stood there trembling. What was this thing it couldn't be a troll, those mean creatures that stood under ancient bridges and took your money and ate you, could it? Well it did look like all the descriptions but...

             "Uh, Hi um, I think I should be on my way, heheh, um sorry about any um, anything, everything?" as soon as the words were out of Elias's mouth he was speeding towards a small dot of light in the far stone wall that must mean a far off entrance. Then he crashed into the wall. It turned out the spot of light was actually a firefly...

             "Well you probably shouldn't go out that way, you would have to dig through three thousand tons of rock matey, *burb* eh excuse me" Elias stunned stared up at a drunken Dwarf who entered on the scene with a pint of beer in his hand. A Dwarf! Dwarfs had been outlawed after they had refused to give ninety-nine percent of their gems and such to the King instead of only seventy-five percent. After that they had been prime kills for bounty hunters because of all the jewels they possessed. Everyone thought that they had been extinct for years. Of course everyone knew it was their own fault, if they were not so greedy and had given the King twenty-four percent more than they were already they could have avoided destruction. They were still outlaws too. He stood up and backed against a wall. The next thing that came in would be a Vampire Elias though jokingly, after all Vampire were definitely just myths or if not had been completely eradicated thousands of years before. Finally a man entered the room, Elias breathed a sigh of relief, obviously every man in the Kingdom followed the King, any "outlaws" had been destroyed years before. Then the man smiled, and Elias shivered.

             "How nice to meet someone new, I am Dovarinus Melcarinus Daveram, High Lord of the Drakarn Vampires." His voice was dry leaves, being crushed under some careless human's boot. He bowed just right for a High Lord addressing someone slightly lower than them. Elias was too afraid to be affronted even if he was a real High Lord unlike this m--, er Vampire.

             "Ah, um, eh, hehe, I, well, I, um, Augghhhhh, please don't hurt me please, please I will give anything mi' lord." Elias fell to his knees shaking and begging for mercy. The Vampire took on a quizzical expression opening his mouth as if not knowing how to respond, when a woman walked in. No, not a woman, THE woman. The one he was trying to save, that had hugged the Dragon. Strange that... He did not have much time for wonder however for then there came a rumbling sound. It was as if the world was moving.

             “Aughhhhh! We're all gonna die!” Elias started running in circles wishing he had more to be proud of in his life, then he noticed the others smiling at him.

             “Oh don't worry my dear, the Rock Golem just decided to move.” The lady said it so sweetly that he forgot who else he was with and began to calm down. That is, until he remembered what she had said.

             “Impossible, Rock Golems, those huge creatures in Myths that take the forms of caves or...or...uh oh.” He looked around and realized the ground was not shaking, the cave was moving. He threw himself to the floor and huddled in a little ball. The others still continued with those smug smiles at him. Well let them get themselves crushed, he didn't care. One moment it was dark and the next sacred, sunlight streamed in to meet his shaking body. It warmed his bones and he cried out in joy, as he jumped up and spun around. Then he saw where he was. It was the Dragonpine! The Dragonpine was a huge mountain that loomed in the middle of the Kings empire and was the one blight on his beautiful artificial grass and flat ground smashed down by the Kings royal sledge hammerers. The Dragonpine was the place infested by Dragons and the King could never get a firm hold there. But everyone had thought only Dragons lived there. From what he could see every type of evil mythical creature was here. Well a few may not have been exactly evil such as the Dwarfs, but still, they were outlaws and they should have killed themselves on the Kings order. It would have been only right. He looked out from the top of the mountain and noticed little flying things all around. They were those unicorn things the King had outlawed when they crossbred with bats! Why they were disobeying ALL of his laws.

             “The lady walked up beside him and said, “Well we should get you before the court sonny, they will like to have a talk with you I would think.” For the first time he noticed the hat on her head. It was small. It was pointed. And it was pink! She was a Witch! And she was going to take him to the court, a court of criminals! No doubt it wouldn't be pleasant if there were Dragon trolls Vampire and Witches in it. Strangely he was not freaking out. For some reason he was taking this calmly, which was strange. The Witch was probably doing something to him, but that didn't seem to upset him either. He just didn't feel any emotion at all. What had he become! Was he being changed into some sort of lifeless, emotionless, frog!? Well, to tell you the truth he was just in shock.

             The Witch led Elias, still in shock, to a standing "baticorn" as they were called. Elias and the witch flew away, about halfway down the mountain, to the Court of the Visage of Dragonol Deaconious. Elias was led into a hall of stone and what seemed like hours with his claustrophobia was probably only seconds. He emerged into a huge cavern that stole his breath even short as it was with his hyperventilation. As he looked around it was as if he was no longer underground, the ceiling was painted with such extraordinary works of trees that looked so much better than the artificial ones back home. He started and a flash of anger burned out that thought. He was loyal to his home. Still the firelight from huge braziers cast dancing shadows onto the wall and ceiling and made them come alive. Elias couldn't help but stare at the scene. He was staring so intently it came to him as a shock that the huge mythical creatures and such gathered in a semicircle of eleven were not part of the artistry. He started in shock finally coming out of his stupor. He stared around at them. The council was made up from left to right of a giant Troll, a Earth Spirit, a Fire Spirit, a Witch, Dragon, Vampire, Dwarf, Water Spirit, Air Spirit, and a Wizard. They were each on thrones but none so large as the Dragon in the very center. Elias gasped as he was lifted in the air by and unseen force and gently set on a stone pestle in the middle of the room. Yes it was a stone pestle not a pedestal as he had expected. The Witch who had brought him bowed and left. Then the other Witch on the throne started to look at him expectantly. They stared at each other for a couple seconds.

             “Well, I brought you over there for a reason fool, bring me my pestle.” Elias started and grabbed the pestle running over to her and handing it over. He did it before he even had a chance to think. It was odd he behaved so quickly in a time like this. Then the Witch used that unseen force to move him back again this time onto the pedestal.

             “Come, come Lavinyara don't frighten the child.” Elias straightened with indignation from being called a child. After all he is now the heir to house Danera and second only to the King. Then he saw who had said it. It was the bloody Dragon. He stood there with his mouth hanging open until a beetle flew into it. He spat it out and went right back to staring. After all Dragon weren't supposed to TALK! The Dragon noticed his surprise and his face creased in what could have been a frown.

             “So few remember us as we really are, they think of us as simply monsters.” The Dragon looked sad as he spoke, “It was us who ruled the land of Dragonpire before you humans came across the sea in your puny boats. Though we are considered the wisest of intelligent beings, we were not too smart in this instance. When we should have destroyed their boats to keep they from destroying our people and those who serve us, we tried to make peace. They refused to even admit we could speak and instead they made settlement after settlement. By the time we realized peace was hopeless they had grown too big and strong for us to do anything but retreat to Dragonpine.”

      Elias started, thats not how he had always heard of this. He had thought that from the first day of the Loyalist's landing they were fought by every sort of foul creature. These included Dragons, and the Loyalists had to struggle to make a civilization without being annihilated. Of course a tale like that could easily grow to make them seem strong, after all there had only been a couple thousand who came and now there were over a hundred thousand. These Dragon and mythical animals had over thirty-five thousand at their command.

             “Well d-, um, ahh sir, Is there a erm, reason why I am captive?” The Dragon blinked at him.

             “Well obviously, we are trying to decide what to do with you since it was you King that killed us and drove us to hide here.” Elias was stunned! After all it was the mythical creatures fault that they were sent away and killed. He said as much to the Dragon. Then the Dragon looked stunned.

             "You have it all wrong, we were forced from the land that was ours for years because we tried to make peace with an Illiterate fool that dared to call himself King on the Holy ground that had been ruled by Dragon emperors for millenniums! Shadar, Logoth take him to the hall of records and have citizens teach him of the history." Two figures crept out of the shadows of the thrones. They were small and wiry, but they looked human! They wore a black jumpsuit that had a mask covering their faces. They gently took hold of Elias and steered him towards the exit.

             "Hey" Elias whispered, "Can you help me escape?" the two men looked at him strangely without slowing their pace, but they did not say anything.

             As they brought him around the last corner he stared in amazement. Two large golden statues stood side by side as if guarding the passage in between. They depicted a man and a woman holding elegant swords pointed cave-topwards and they had bows slung on their backs. They were so intricately carved that Elias though he could see the nose hairs on the man. As he leaned forward for a closer look to judge the validity of his hypothesis, the man swung his head around! It started at him for a moment then it spoke.

             "Why by the Holy Dragon's flatulent udder were you staring at my nose, I am sure I trimmed my nose hair this morning." With that he most ungracefully started twirling his sword in his nose intently.

             "Bob! Stop digging in your nose when there are strangers here. Really! I am almost ashamed to be your ex-wife twice moved when you do that." With that the statue named Bob abruptly stopped and stood back at attention.

             "I'm sorry my Gilded darling, that polishing oil I had yesterday must have gone bad. I have been acting strange lately." Elias stared from one to the other of them trying to grasp what they meant, or even the fact that they could mean anything since to mean anything implies they actually had something in them, such as life, that could actually try to mean anything, which two golden statues usually did not. Phew! Elias's brain was spinning in his head trying to grasp even the object which he used to grasp the fact. Then a sudden push from behind broke him from his sentiment. He went crashing forward towards Bob, the maniacal statue obsessed with nose hairs. Immediately, the two men, if that was what they were, leaped forwards and with their thin sinewy arms grabbed him back. Just in time as it were, because he was about to be impaled by the sword Bob was waving around in his ongoing conversation with the female statuette.

             After a moment Elias looked around, for he had closed his eyes as he hurtled towards Bob. He found himself looking into the eyes a haughty Kneeyad. Now you have no doubt heard of Dryads and Nyads and such, but I doubt you have ever imagined a Kneeyad. The Creator had definitely had fun creating them, they were a mix of almost every being in all of the known lands and most of the unknown ones. Now Kneeyads lived in the knees of only the strongest, most courageous, heroes and creatures in history. There are exactly three hundred-thousand two hundred seventy-four and a half of them living in the world. They are all identical, and are all female, which presents a problem with reproduction. They are always dressed in a long green polyester dress with décolletage that stretches nearly to the naval. They have thin and elegant limbs but their joints are about three times larger than would seem possible. They have pins in their hair that some say are the souls of famous heroes they have eaten. They actually are probably just stylish hair decor, but who knows? Anyways, this one had crashed into his back and nearly had killed him. How rude.

             It looked at him as if daring him to speak a word. Wisely he decided not to take her up on that dare. He stepped forward into the hall that he had been brought to. It was a large room, but it seemed many times smaller because it was largely made up of a labyrinth of deadly shelves of books. It was deadly because these shelves were so tall that eventually gravity took its tool and the shelf would fall usually when someone was underneath. Of course only the bravest of readers would ever venture into those page lined bowels of the magnificent hall of records. Of course Elias wouldn't be going anywhere near that in the near future, but you might as well know about his surroundings.

 

»~¤_¤~>

 

Ten Hours Later

             Elias now had a different understanding of these people. Each type of creature had taken a turn explaining to him why that horrible King had banished them, and what had happened since. It was strange that calling the King horrible was so easy, but it was not surprising after what he had done to some of the species. The Rock Golems had been outlawed because of their size and because they had refused to flatten the land for the King. This was because the land was precious to them and any hurt inflicted on it would hurt them. The Elves had joined the royal military corps, but had been labeled deserters after they tried to put a stop to burning the local trees. The Vampires had been working for the King hunting down criminals and using the blood gathered as blood transfusions for the Kings subjects. One of them had accidentally killed the wrong person and they had all been banished. The Witches had helped the King make cures for the people until there was an embarrassing and unfortunate incident that concerned toads transformations and humans that had put them out too. The Wizards had stayed by the Kings side for the longest. It is hard to explain exactly what they did wrong, especially since the Wizard explaining was slightly ADD, but this is what he said.

              "Well, see sonny, the reason why we were thrown out of the Kingdom was because we destroyed the world."

             "Really?"

     "Yup we destroyed the world, we did."

             "Well I am pretty sure that I am alive and still in the world. So if it is still here how did you destroy the world?"

             "We destroyed the world we did."

             "How?"

             "You calling me a liar sonny?"

             "No sir! But how?"

             "Well I guess I could tell you...Just this once though."

             "Um alright then are you gonna tell me?"

      "Yup I'm going to tell you I am. See we was all good loyal Kings men when one day he asked us for a giant Hell-Hound that could get better game than the Pomeranian he had at the moment. Well see that Pomeranian, it meant the world to him. So when we summoned a slightly larger than needed Hell-Hound it rushed forward and ate the Pomeranian. See sonny? The Pomeranian meant the world to the King and since we were Kings men, it meant the world to us too. So when we indirectly destroyed it, we obviously destroyed the world."

             "Um, well thanks for your time, ah, sir."

             Anyways, this was how Elias ended up two days later planning on how to overthrow the land of Dragonspire. He and the council of Elder Myths created many plans that were elegantly crafted, but they won't be mentioned because they would obviously fail. Finally they came up with a great plan.

             Elias would come back home and tell everybody that the dragons would attack from south. The Dragons and mythical creatures would form a pincer movement on the North, East, and West sides. The Vampires, Witches and other human like figures would ride the flying creatures. The rest would follow underneath on foot. Elias would have some loyal to him to open the gates and the creatures would stream in. They would flow through every street and alleyway taking prisoners and killing as few as possible. Then they would come up to the castle itself. Elias and the other representatives would take the King and make a public display of his execution. Everyone would serve the counsel of eleven and there would be peace. Then they would have pink sherbet, can't forget the pink sherbet.

             The plan was carried out and a week later Elias was in the castle with the counsel of eleven.

             "There was not supposed to be any killing, except at need! I doubt there is even one person living in the city. And there is no Pink sherbet!" He was confronting the counsel who were lounging on some newly acquired cushions. They all seemed to be studying him with eyes, that as he realized had a slightly malevolent look to them. But of course that was just his imagination, after all they were all kind and had been misused by the King who was now decapitated outside.

             "Our people were hungry and they all hate humans." The Dragon had a thoughtful expression on its face as it rasped the words out. He motioned to the corners and two shadows crept out. They were the humans called Shadar and Logoth. Surprisingly, he had not seen them since the day on Dragonspine. They walked forward in that gait and wheels began to turn in Elias's head that should have turned long before. The men reached up and took hold of their masks. They ripped them off with fingers that suddenly had long nails on the ends. He stared at the faces beneath. He stared and his heart skipped a beat. They started to advance on him. But, why! The myths did not have any grudge against humans, after all they had told all those stories of trying to help. Even if some of them had seemed a bit fishy. They were all true. Weren't they? The black clad beings took another step towards him and ice ran down his veins. The council of eleven's eyes had a beady satisfied gleam to them. Only they weren't the council of eleven anymore, with the black clad things included they were a council of THIRTEEN! Elias took a step back and found himself up against a wall. The Beings took one more step forward. They were the last things he ever saw.

 

 

Author's Note

I have lots of Grammar and spelling problems I know I just got it in in time for the contest so I will be editing them. Thanks for bearing with me.

Reviews

[Scott Free]

Good writing, greg! Liked it a lot. Funny, too, very very funny.
There are a lot of grammar problems, but I would go through it and read it aloud, that should fix them. The part with the wizards had me rolling on the floor. Thumbs up!
Okay, the end--not the part where Elias is betrayed but the part where they plan and take the castle seems pretty rushed. I would lengthen it, have a scene where he takes the king or something. If you don't want to have a long word count, I would take out the scene with Bobby the troll, and the dwarf and the vampire, because he'll meet the Myths later on. But I also loved the heroes and the Kneeyad...however, I didnt' see how they fitted into the story. Make a way for them to add to the plot.
Very good! Like it a lot. I think you've found your calling =)

Scott

[ICE]

This was funny in some places. I liked it. The story flowed very well from point a to point b.

[Salvatore Buttaci]

Congratulations for winning the duck contest!

[Jimmy Greenie]

Really good, and funny in places! A bit of surprise at the end when Elias is betrayed. Brilliant!

[Calypso]

Very nice. Good story line.

[Vanguard]

Nice! I liked the "problem for reproduction" and "are you calling me a liar, sonny?" moments. I also enjoyed the apotheosis as both the reader and big damn hero learns what an authoritarian d****e the king is. And further as la resistance is shown to be pretty bloodthirsty.

Your biggest grammar problem is lack of paragraphs. It is hard to read text that is clumped together.

As a general rule, whenever someone talks, use a new line.

[.]

Good writing and nice ideas
I always enjoy fictional writing
And you just mixed everything - dwarves, vampires and so on
Great Job!
~Kavish~

[David]

Haha very funny, I like it keep it up

[Kelsey Desmond]

I appreciate your work here. Most authors cannot pull off a fantasy story about dragons, no matter how hard they try. But I would say that you have executed this piece nicely. The words flow and keep a well-written story on the fantasy edge without heading into the "lost-your-mind" point of view. Nicely done.

[Andrew (not Andy, A.J. ..]

ROFL hahahaha very funny greg.
Scond pharagraph's a little wierd, too many exclamations.
"Elias stunned stared up at a drunken Dwarf..." Maybe stared, stunned...?
I also notice you forget to pluralize often.
And whenever the King is in something the K is capitalized.
DragonPine...do you mean dragonSPIRE? like the title?
"Oh who am I kidding he was just in shock." Uhh, I'd say you could either kull this line or kull the whole frog thingy. It's not that funny.
"Two figures crept out of the shadows of the thrones. They were small and wiry, but they looked human! They wore a black jumpsuit that had a mask covering their faces. They gently took hold of Elias and steered him towards the exit." Hmmmm, I trust they didn't SHARE the jumpsuit and the mask?
Ahem, I also notice that the spaces between paragraphs are wierd sometimes.
"...Wizard explaining was slightly ADD but this is what they said." I'd say just write Atention Defiscit Disorder, or whatever.
hahahahahahah I agree with scott the wizard is really funny.
lol pink sherbet.
ooooooh sad ending.
anyway. pretty good. A lot of grammar errors though. gj.

[Gregory Hill]

Thanks Jane and everyone else for their Great Reviews!