Interlude

To the dragon’s credit, it wasn’t a helpless skink. It had lived for hundreds of years, the vast majority spent sleeping in its mountain top fortress. When it was confronted by a torrent of energy intended to end its existence, it felt no shame in shattering the wall of ice and launching itself into the sky.

The attack was powerful and had given it a painful burn wherever the beam had touched, but he’d felt worse and chances are there would be worse wounds for him in the future.

Ven’zet was one of the most powerful dragons on all of Mir, albeit he was also the laziest dragon as his siblings would tease him back when they would interact more frequently. He had no way of telling how long it had been since he last woke from his hibernation.

Usually, he gaged the passage of time by how hungry he was, but his last meal had been a rather large dragon who had challenged him for his territory. That meal was delicious. Dragon meat was the most filling and as such Ven’zet wasn’t terribly hungry. In fact, he still felt pretty full. He noticed it more so as he flew through the air his rib cage stretched out, his full belly causing him to descend much faster than normal.

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Unlike some of his siblings, Ven had no method of powered flight; instead he had adapted to glide from mountain to mountain on his massive scaly membranes. He considered powered flight at his preferred altitude a waste of energy anyway. There was no reason to fly when he could silently glide upon unsuspecting prey.

His mouth began to water as he remembered the taste of his last meal. He hadn’t quite shaken off his sleep induced stupor. He hadn’t woken up naturally, which made clearing his mind of his dreams all the more difficult.

A closely kept secret of the most powerful dragons was how little time they were actually awake. Instead most chose to live a life in their dreams. He had no interest in wasting time in utter solitude when he could live in his dreams that responded to his beck and call.

He was happily in the middle of just such a dream when he was rudely awakened by a rather painful shock. If he had been in his full power, he could have snatched up that squeaky snack and been back to sleep in three heartbeats. Unfortunately, they had caught him completely unaware.

Ven had crashed through the ice wall and leapt out into the cold mountain air. He figured he could glide off to another one of his mountain caverns and just kite these adventurers around until they gave up. This wasn’t his first encounter with adventurers and wouldn’t be his last. At least that was his plan until he felt something hard slam into his back mid-glide.