Awakening

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

What a trivial thought to have at a time like this. Here, nearing the completion of centuries worth of planning, that was the thought that sprang into their head. It did make some logical sense they supposed. When approaching the end of a journey it was only natural to reflect on the major points that led there, and foul weather can bring out a pensive attitude in anyone apparently.

They were walking under gloomy skies through the muddied streets of one of the most industrious and miserable bastions of the dragons. The being that appeared to be nothing more than a disheveled human man on the wrong side of fifty to anyone that noticed him at all pulled the hood of its tattered brown cloak up to better shelter its face against the steady rain. Not to better protect its skin from the mildly corrosive sting that accompanied contact with the rain, as such trivial things were laughably below its notice, but to blend in to the masses around it doing the same.

As the being looked from the gaunt and worn faces of the people hurriedly passing them by to the bleak coal stained and acid washed facades of the buildings, they felt a strange sensation. A stab of genuine emotion. Had the centuries of guiding and watching the humans finally caught up with them? What was this feeling…regret? Yes, that felt right. Seeing the abysmal ruin that had come to this valley, they did regret having to aim the dragons towards what was once a beautiful and thriving pocket of life on an otherwise ravaged world.

As if drawn closer by the mere thought of them, the figure saw two of them ahead as the ever-shifting tide of bodies parted. They stood tall and strong among the crowd, unflinching against the bite of the rain thanks to their armor. The steel plates covering their bodies were wrought in the shape of scales, though badly pitted and degraded by years of exposure to the corrosive elements in the Valley. One walked with a long spear, using it as a walking stick and occasionally as a tool to roughly part thick portions of the crowd that blocked their passage. The other walked with a hand on his sword, scanning the crowd for any potential threats while on their patrol. Both however, wore crimson cloaks draped over their shoulders (the fabric in even worse shape than their armor). At the center was embossed the symbol that gave them their name to any culture unfortunate enough to fall under their boot, the black and gold dragon that was the sigil of the Daxin Empire.

The being walking camouflaged among the people it had damned to this life wished there had been real dragons capable of causing the necessary destruction in the Valley, but only the human variety of dragon could be this brutal. In the hundred years since the war- banners of the dragons first came to wipe out the native people of the Valley, an offshoot of humanity created by the chaotic forces of the Surge, they had stripped the land of every conceivable material of value. The forests were cleared for lumber, the lakes and rivers were pillaged for food and diverted to power the arcane engines needed by the humans to survive the hostile world created by the Surge. The mountains were converted to hollow shells, their resources plundered to fuel the insatiable apatite of the Empire’s foundries and the space used as shelters for the humans too fragile to live on the surface.

With every trace of the previous civilization wiped out, the humans decided to name the Valley after the most plentiful resource they found there…the iron that facilitates their growing domination. At its center, the forge city of Oxrock served to funnel the plundered resources back to the east. Back to the empire proper. It was this miserable tangle of forges, factories, mills, and workshops that the thing disguised as a man found itself in. In fact, it was so caught up in its reminiscence that it almost blundered into the two patrolling dragons, not noticing that they had stopped to question a passerby.

“Watch where yer goin!” The spear carrying dragon growled as he turned to confront whoever bumped into him.

With a simple flick of the wrist and a miniscule whisper of power however, the guard and everyone who witnessed the interaction was diverted. Set back on their paths and about their business as if nothing had ever happened.

A new feeling flooded the being’s mind…irritation. It had been centuries since they had been that distracted. They couldn’t afford to be at such a crucial time. They will not let the millennia of planning the hundreds of thousands of lives expended be wasted by its carelessness. They had almost blown everything by bumping into the wrong person.

Their irritation and growing worry were unfounded however as they saw, at long last, the very thing they had been searching for. A young man, no more than twenty, his features largely covered by the tattered and corroded brown cloak pulled tight to his body. Even with his features hidden, they could see into the untapped raw potential of this figure. The great gift that not even he knew he carried. The key to this world’s salvation or destruction. All of the pruning and planning was about to pay off.

If anyone who had witnessed the event that would alter the future of life on this miserable world had understood the chain of events it would set off, it would have been an incredible let down. So simple and banal that no one other than the being who set it in motion could ever see the connecting threads. All they had to do was topple the first domino.

The young man stepped under a nearby canopy where a vendor was selling mulled wine against the cold, and the old beggar who would change his fate nudged him in the back just enough to send the man sprawling into the cauldron of wine.