As the hug continued, Raouk slowly realized that the boy’s scales had dramatically shifted in colours. Even considering the ashes that dirtied his scales, it was unmistakable that Nogh’s scales were now dark green instead of the bright red ones he had inherited from his father. Realizing this, Raouk cut the hug short as he softly pushed Nogh away from him as he inspected the boy still holding by his shoulders.

“Raouk? Is something wrong?” Nogh asked, worried about the old man’s piercing gaze.

“Nogh… Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t your scales red last time we met?” the druid hesitantly asked.

Nogh looked down at his hands and nodded his head.

“Yes they were… They had changed to this colour this morning after that weird dream…” he said in response.

Raouk face contorted from one of worry to one that just couldn’t understand the connection. He held the look for a second as the gears in his head turned, eventually clicking something into place, causing him to switch back to his worried look.

“A dream? What kind of dream?” Raouk asked worried about the implications of a magical dream.

“Yes… I… I had a dream about my family…” Nogh said hesitantly, the scar still fresh.

“I remembered all the time that I spent with Nori and my parents… Then I was in the house as it was burning up… I ran to Nori’s room to save her, as I did that night…” he continued as he crossed his arms and holding back his tears.

“Bu… But once I had managed to hold her in my arms… She just faded away… Then I found myself laying on the ground… Bloody and sore as she stood in front of me…” he continued, but now incapable of holding back his sobs.

“She… She looked at me… She looked down at me, her incapable brother!!!” he screamed in pain.

“Then she turned around and started walking off… I tried to crawl after her to bring her back to no avail… Every step she took… The further she got… All I could do is swear…” he said weakly.

“I swore… I cursed… I swore to get my revenge on the gods themselves for this…” he continued

“Then once she got too far for me to see, a green light blew up over the horizon, and it slowly approached me…” he kept going.

“It was a skull shaped lantern containing a green light…” he told the old man, before pointing at it on the stone fence near the entrance to the cemetery.

“It’s been following me… Even though I left it at the bed when I awoke…” he explained

The old druid was stunned as he looked between the young boy and the lantern. He was unable to fully comprehend the extent of dream magic. His lack of knowledge left him curious and since he had never seen a lantern remotely like it, as it contained a bright green flame. Raouk eventually stood up and approached the lantern with careful steps to study it, unsure what would happen. As he got closer and closer, nothing seemed to happen, so he chose to inspect the green flame inside. It seemed ordinary in nature, but it reeked of magical energy he couldn’t recognize.

Then an idea came to him.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Boy…” he said without looking back at the kid.

Nogh whipped his head up from the ground and looked at the old druid.

“Can you manipulate its flame?” he asked, imagining the possibilities of this artifact.

“I… Don’t know? I’ve been trying to ignore it as much as possible.” Nogh explained, hesitating to even look at the skull shaped lantern.

Hearing his answer, Raouk walked back to the boy, kneeling down in front of him and grabbing by the shoulders. A theory slowly formed in his head as he tried to make sense of the situation.

“Nogh, my boy. This is a magical artifact. One that is linked to you. It is uniquely yours, and it shall never part you. Learning how to use it to your advantages is something you must learn.” He said, determined to teach Nogh.

“I will teach you how to control flames and some druidic arts. This way, even if we get separated, you will be able to survive alone.” he explained excitedly.

As he started explaining the secret behind the spell, his son finally found them. Ralk slowly walked up to the two before looking at the odd lantern, and greeting the two of them. After a brief explanation, surrounding the lantern and Nogh’s pigment change, they decided to join the others for dinner and began to walk toward the town centre.

After dinner, most of the villagers went back to looting all valuables from the houses and gathered them up near the town centre for later redistribution. Nogh, Ralk and Raouk went to a hill nearby instead, where they planned on teaching Nogh the bare necessities of magic. Hoping to allow him to protect himself from future dangers.

The group of Kobolds stayed in the village for a few days before they slowly began breaking apart. The valuables from the village were equally divided between them, hopefully buying them some safety and success on their respective journeys. As for Nogh, Ralk and Raouk they decided to climb the mountain and seek out Drak’s den. They were unsure of what they would find there, but they knew that they had to find out what had happened to their guardian.

Nogh now had a bit of an understanding of magic now and could somewhat control the flames from a torch to shape into odd shapes. Of course finesse was not yet achieved, but that was but a matter of practice, the real challenge would stem from the magical flame contained inside the lantern.

As they climbed, the mountain, they found many footsteps leading up, footsteps that were much bigger than theirs, solidifying their belief that the humans had come. If it wasn’t the humans, it could’ve also been the elves or a similar sized species. There were far too many bipedal and humanoid races on this planet, and no one bothered to memorize every detail of each of them.

Eventually they got closer to the top of the mountain where the lair was hidden, as they got closer they noticed patches of burnt ground, little pools of dried blood and the occasional weapon thrown about.

It was only when they got close enough to see the entrance to the den that they saw the horrors of the attack. Dozens of bodies littered the entrance, some were ripped apart, others burnt to a crisp, some were nothing but body parts littered on the floor while others were seemingly burnt by acid or some other form of corrosion.

The many weapons were quite literally a treasure trove for lucky scavengers, they were however not nearly enough to pick up every valuable thing on the ground, and they were hesitant about claiming the bounty before confirming Drak’s fate.

They hesitantly approached the mouth of the cave and could hear heavy breathing from the inside. Drak was alive! But by the sounds of it he was far from being in a healthy state. The group of kobolds slowly crept in making sure to watch out for any remaining humans, however unlikely it was, they wouldn’t dare risk their lives over assumptions of safety.

The darkness in the cave was nullified by their power of darksight, and they could see the many bodies littered inside, along with a few small dragons near the entrance. Their darksight although useful, didn’t allow them to see colours and details clearly, they only saw different shades of grey in varying levels of detail. And after judging that they were safe to light a torch, Ralk quickly set about lighting one to allow the party to see clearly in the dark.

As soon as the torch was lit, the carnage within the cave became clear, in the dark they hadn’t noticed all the blood everywhere, the scorch marks had also passed them by as they entered. The stone walls had seemingly melted from the heat in some places, while others had clear signs of acid corrosion.

As far as the kobolds had known, Drak hadn’t found a mate just yet, but it seems that they were wrong, judging from the clutch of dragonlings strewn about in the cave. All of them laying still on the cold stone floor, almost certainly deceased. Soon enough, they spotted a big black dragon in a corner of the den next to a nest full of broken eggs.

The body of the black dragon was scarred, its wings ripped open, an arm cut cleanly off, scales littering the floor and one of the horns on her head broken off and missing. If those signs weren’t enough, there was a longsword still stuck in her right eye, shoved in to the hilt, the arms still holding onto the weapon. The arm's owner was nowhere to be found, but that mattered little when the gigantic beast that laid before them was so obviously dead.