new story

I'm deciding whether or not to continue writing this story. It just kind of popped into my mind and I had to get it out so I wrote it down. Let me know if you think I should continue it or not.

He crawled out from under a light covering of rocks and dust. Many pebbles and smaller rocks had been dislodged just recently, amidst them the crystals he had used to form his spell of sleep. Gathering up his crystals he saw that they were barely charged at all and wondered how long he had slept. His spell had specified ‘until the dragons flew once more’ and when he had went to sleep he thought that it would be perhaps a decade or two. Twenty years was an eye blink to a dragon but was long enough that those persecuting them should’ve been dead and buried. He knew, from his own research, that the lives of the dragons, their very presence, was what generated the energies of magic. Their flights, their lairs and their mating spread it about the world for those of his ilk to harness and use. From the looks of his crystals they had not been in this area for a very long time.

Slowly, outside noises disrupted his reverie. Looking up and wondering at the sharp, yet muffled, retorts he heard he saw that what was once an entrance to this cavern was now buried. From appearances the rockslide had occurred a long time ago. He laboriously began to remove rocks from the large pile blocking his egress. More than an hour later he could finally see a small sliver of sky. The air in the cavern was quite stale but as he smelled the air pouring in from above he thought it might be better to breathe the stale air. Smells of brimstone and sulfur, blood and human innards bore heavily into him as he breathed the outside air. The noises from earlier had ceased sometime during his digging. Risking a small cantrip he sent his sight out through the opening. Scattered about the landscape he would once have been familiar with were the remains of a slaughter. The lovely glade that had concealed the entrance to his cave was no more. Splintered trees and bushes scattered the landscape. Deep, ragged holes were dug into the ground and amidst them is a human carnage. Pieces of bodies lay scattered about while several individuals seemed to living, their concentration focused out beyond the holes they lay at the edge of.

Once again sharp retorts filled the air. This time, un-muted by a covering of dirt and rock, he found them offensively loud. He also heard a distinct humming nearby and looked about for what flying creature might be causing it. When he saw the spurts of dirt and rock flying into the air he realized that it was no living creature. With a quick incantation he sped himself up and looked once more. Small pieces of metal, in non-natural shapes, were flying through the air. Looking all about he realized that the items held in the hands of the men he had seen earlier were responsible for the retorts and that they were also spitting out pieces of metal. He felt one of his crystals drain and rather than tax another he let the spell lapse. There were a number of cantrips he could use from his own energies rather than draining his crystals and he decided to hoard the crystals until such time as he needed their power.

With a quick gesture he caused light to bend around himself, not true invisibility but as close to it as he could come with his own energies. In a vain attempt to keep himself safe he also bespoke a shield that would hopefully protect him from the small metal objects whistling about. Walking out he gazed over the edge of the large hole he was in. Within several other similar holes out on a plain, which was a forest when he went to sleep, he saw other people. Also holding the items that hurled the small metal pieces. Strange helmets adorned the heads of these new people, on the side of one he caught a glimpse of the sun rune.

A thick and meaty impact, followed by a strangled cry caught his attention. One of the men in this hole had just been struck by a flying piece of metal. As this life expired, he felt a surge in the available magical energies. Although he disliked using death magics, he caught the energies flying from the man and stored them in the crystal he had drained earlier. Although dragons provided the stronger magics needed for great workings, each man himself had a small amount that they could call on and this was what he had appropriated. Walking back to his hole, he slipped inside the cavern once more. Perhaps when this fight was over he might be able to speak to the victors and find some basic information.

Thralen