Traitors Hand
There weren’t always Dragons in the valley. And sometimes I think that we would have been better off without them. Our civilization had been built on the confluence of 2 rivers. From the North flows the Red River, its name coming from the high iron content in the soil that it brings with it. The Journey River flows from the West and it was this river that the Elders navigated so long ago before leaving their boats the establish our nation in the heart of this valley. To the South and West lie the mountains of the Dragons and to the East, the land of the Wraths. The demons of the East. The Wraiths look like us from a distance but have soft, translucent skin that changes color like a chameleon to make them almost invisible to the normal, untrained eye. They’re gifted in stealth and are technically proficient in armed combat. Dragons however, are a peculiar species. They can take the form of a human, similar in shape and size but not in color. They shapeshift to walk among us, but their magic does not enable them to change the details of their appearance. When they come down to trade and speak to us, they come in a form like ours, only their skin is the color of burnt bronze and they look like a lizard that grew legs and a threw on a set of pants. In their natural form they are in fact giant reptiles complete with the claws, tails and wings that allow them to glide down from the mountains, but they cannot fly, just glide. Anyways, that’s what they tell us, but I don’t trust them. They may not kill us like the Wraiths seem to enjoy doing, but the Dragons are a scheming people, and I wouldn’t turn my back on them unless I knew that they were dead first. They are peaceful and we have a good trading relationship with them, but I still don’t trust them. Maybe I’m just paranoid. Better paranoid than dead.
