Fantasy Competition Prologue

“There weren’t alwaysss dragonsss in the valley,” The bard hissed as she turned one of the tuning knobs on her lute.

She looked at the audience of fellow dragon-kin sitting near her campfire. They were all young hatchlings so it was easy to read their expressions, they stared at her with large eyes on their pointed faces and the spines on their heads gave away their curiosity.

“I know it’sss hard to believe, but I remember a time when treesss covered most of the valley and our ancessstorsss were trapped beneath the ground.”

The 6 hatchlings gasped in shock, the bard could see the disbelief in their eyes and watched as they swished their tails back and forth in agitation. She heard a distinctive slap as one of them hit their tail on the ground to attract an older drake’s attention. The bard smiled showing some of her more prominent fangs and saw a few older drakes look over to her campfire. She swished her tail to put them at ease, to show that she was just telling a story. The last thing she wanted to do was get run out of yet another camp.

The bard flicked her fingers along the strings of her lute and started playing a gentle tune. The fire she sat beside responded to her melody and the flames became less erratic, they stopped reaching towards the sky and instead flattened out like they had met an invisible barrier. The bard added some high notes to the tune and the flames responded to the music in turn.

“What?” A drake with blue scales and silvery spines whispered breathlessly as the fire slowly created a small valley.

The valley looked similar to the one they were in however there were some key differences. There wasn't a large crack that split the valley in two, instead a river ran down the middle. The bard frowned and changed the tune slightly, the valley shifted, trees grew around the valley and what looked like a town rose up next to the river.

“My da saysss, that the dragonsss have alwaysss been here but were hiding." A young drake with red scales and blue spines protested. "He sssaid that the humansss were cruel and dessserved what happened to them."

"Hiding? No young one," the bard said, shaking her head.

She added some bass notes and the valley of fire rose up a little. There were some more gasps as what looked like a cave appeared under the valley. "Our ancestorsss were not hiding, what would a dragon have to hide from? No our ancestorsss were held captive and brought here to hide their exissstenccce from the world."

The fire zoom into the cave and a little bit of sweat ran down the bard's face as she plucked more notes and concentrated on the magic she was invoking. Inside the cave 4 dragons were chained up and looked like they were trying to wriggle free but were not having any success. Smaller figures poked the dragons with long poles and then stopped some large carts in front of them.

"You lie!" The red scaled drake challenged hotly. "Bardsss lie all the time."

"I will tell no liesss here tonight," the bard replied, she stopped strumming her tune and looked at each of the drakes sitting around her campfire, slowly the fire images lost cohesion and returned to a cracking campfire. The cool autumn night carried the bard's words past the hatchlings and to the older drakes watching them, they could feel the magic that infused her words showing that she was telling the truth.

"Tonight I will tell you a ssstory about a human warden, an elf sorceresss, a minotaur barbarian, a drake bard and the world's clumsssiessst dog. They are possssibly our peoplesss greatessst heroesss, but they are the unsssung heroesss, the heroesss we ssshould celebrated. Inssstead of what actually happened."

She took a deep breath and then began to strum her lute quickly, her claws flashed across the strings. The tune was frantic yet joyous and the fire responded to the music, a dog wreathed in fire chased a ball and a group of adventurers chased the dog.

"My ssstory beginsss with the world'sss most uncoordinated but adorable dog."