Here there be Dragons

There weren’t always dragons in the valley, but that was before my uncle disappeared, then all things changed. What I had always believed to be myths became reality. I am getting ahead of myself though. I cannot start in the middle of the story; you would get as lost as I was. No, to know what became of the Blue Valley, and my uncle, I must take you back to the beginning.

Not the very beginning, when magic was first discovered, I am still confused by that and I will not take you down that rabbit hole, but to my beginning. To where my story starts because that is where this tale truly begins.

If there had ever been a normal life it was mine. No one would look twice at me; I’d be forgotten in less then five minutes by most. I am the eldest of three with two younger brothers, annoying things that I would be grateful to be rid of. Still…family, I was stuck with them. My parents were hard workers, dedicated to making the best of our lives but for all they did, it was still a struggle to make ends meet. I was called on early to help and help often. Life would have been horrible if it was not for the visits of my Uncle Randy.

He was the uncle who always had a story, always ready with a smile, and knew how to spread it about. When he visited, which was not as often as I would have liked when I was younger, I would hang on his every word.

I believed every story he ever told. Tales of him fighting goblins, of befriending a troll, of serving in the court of an elven king. He described the world so well that I could picture myself there. I always wanted to go with him when he left, to join him on one of his adventures. My father would never allow it though. He disliked his brother and told me to not let the stories take me off into the clouds. That I needed to be grounded for the family.

My uncle couldn’t be deterred though and on my eighth birthday, he bought me my first dungeons and dragons set and ran the first campaign for me and my friends. I was hooked the moment he said, “So we begin,” It is now a weekly thing in my life, and party and I descend into our own dungeon, an old, abandoned mine, to play.

Over the years my uncle would come and give over his own homebrew campaigns for us to go through, the world he told his stories about them. He told me to learn it well.

And I did. I was the master of Alysenia, from the high peaks of Gesnary, to the fiery depths of Irafa, to the Blood Wolves, and the First Wings. I knew it all.

If only it had been real.

As much as I loved D&D life took over as I got older. I got a job at the movie theater to help pay some of the bills at home, and who doesn’t love movies…and popcorn. Of course, there was a more important thing…girls. Sally Whitfield for one, the world could have revolved around her and it would have been alright with me.

I was sixteen, and though you couldn’t say it I was dating Sally, it was a Friday, and I was getting ready to go to a bonfire out at Caleb’s place. I was meeting Sally there. I couldn’t get my hair right, and all my shirts were wrong. I wanted to be perfect.

It was the last night I saw my uncle.

I was opening the door to finally head out to the bonfire when suddenly my uncle appeared before me. He grabbed me by the shirt and shoved me back inside, slamming the door behind him.

He looked a mess, hair matted, sweat-stained shirt, there was dry and fresh blood on him. His eyes were running in every direction.

“Are you alone?” His voice was a rush, he gasped for his breath.

I was still trying to catch up with him, and admittedly my mind had already left for the bonfire. When I wasn’t quick enough to answer, he grabbed my shoulders fingers digging into me.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes,” I tried to shake loose but he pulled me further into the house.

“Good,” he was frantic. He turned his eyes on me, and I was entranced by his dark blue eyes, locked in their gaze. “Things are coming to pass that can no longer be stopped. I will need you to do what I cannot.” He pushed something into my hand, and closed my fingers around it, it was metal, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from his.

“You must find the Daughter of Sylesta, the rings must be combined.”

I felt something, it was strange, warm, tingling, it moved through my whole body as he spoke. My grip tightened on whatever my uncle had given me.

“I have protected you as long as I could,” my uncle whispered to me as he leaned in close. “Know that I love you.”

He kissed me on the forehead.

I woke the next morning on the floor of my bedroom. I did not know how I had gotten there. My head hurt and my body ached. I twisted myself to a sitting position. I remembered my uncle stopping by, I remembered…he loved me. Nothing more. I moved to rub the sleep from my eyes, but my right hand was locked into a fist. It was a physical strain to open the fingers, I had to tell them before they would let go. A black ring fell to the floor. It rolled and tumbled to a stop before me. I was drawn to it. The light looked to be dancing on the ring. When I picked it up, the morning sun flared upon the black metal, twisting its way along the outside to the inside of the band.

I could feel…a whisper….as if the ring held life in it. I had to put it on. There was nothing in the world more important.

Then I saw the time. Eight thirty-two…Saturday morning. I tossed the ring aside and scrambled for my phone. Over a dozen missed messages. My life was over. Sally would never forgive me, mostly because at the time I couldn’t explain what had happened, I didn’t know, my uncle did something to my mind as he left, one of his little tricks, a gift that I would need.

I would like to tell you that after all else failed in my life I went back to the ring and put it on, it isn’t true. It was almost another two years before I saw the thing again.

I was packing up for college, Caleb and I were off to become screenwriters, and we were ready to bring Hollywood some new stories because we were tired of seeing remakes, and sequels. They needed something new, and we had it.

I was near done with my room, I wasn’t planning on coming back, my life was before me. I turned back one last time at the door, and there left on the desk was the ring.

Once more I was drawn to it. I moved back towards it, shifting the box I was carrying to one arm. I picked it up. The metal was warm to the touch, again the sunlight played across the glassy metal. The whisper was there, I couldn’t hear it, but I knew it was there, and it was calling me. Putting the box down I slid the ring onto my finger.

I don’t know if any of you have gone through a portal unwillingly. It isn’t an easy thing, even when you know what you’re doing and are prepared for it, but to be pulled by another power, well, the best description I can give is that your insides become your outsides, and then it truly gets bad.

When I came to my bones were on fire, every inch of me felt as if I had gone through the grinder, and I was no longer in my bedroom.

I was wet, and cold, on a white sandy beach, with gentle rapids of a river behind me, rolling onto my back sending new pains flaring across my body. I laid there a moment; eyes closed to the warm sun above me.

I don’t remember how long I lay there; the pain was the only thing I could focus on. The sun burned on my face, it felt good to have the welcomed heat. I opened my eyes to it. I had to blink the black spots away before I could focus.

The trees were strange to my eyes, but then most trees that were outside of Blue Valley were strange to me, I was not much of a traveler, nor one who knew his trees. They were thick and shadowed on both sides of the river. Birds called on the wind, and other critters moved about the woods. I rolled to my knees, stiff. I pushed my way to my feet and stretched my back with a groan. I rubbed the back of my neck. This was not the valley. There was only wilderness around me. I scratched behind my left ear and moved to the edge of the river. Kneeling I cupped my hands and took a drink of the cold water. It was good and sated my dry throat.

I took another drink and glanced more up and downstream. I could flip a coin and have a better chance of knowing where to go. I could have used an adventurer’s pack. I smiled. D&D was good for a few things, but I doubt it would come in handy here.

A shadow passed over me, blocking the sun for a moment as it flew by. I looked up. I saw the empty sky. Frowning I stood. I didn’t know it at first but the woods around me had gone silent. My skin crawled. The wind shifted and I was forced a step forward as it struck against my back. There was a loud THUMP, as it did.

THUMP! THUMP!

I turned around. All my years of Dungeons and Dragons could not prepare me for the sight before me.