There once lived a great Dragon Slayer, fierce and terrible, and with
skills that were legendary. He led the people of the land in many wars
against dragonkind. After a battle he would emerge victorious, with the
head of the slain dragon held aloft for all to see, and none disputed
his talents. The clantown where he lived relied on his legendary skills
to protect them (and for the tourism, for they made a fortune off of
all the people who came to visit the many shrines and monuments that they
had erected for their local hero).
When his fame first began to spread, the dragons considered him only a
bit of an inconvenience, like an itch that they couldn't quite reach
(all except for the dragons he killed who, before they died, thought of
him with much loathing). After all, there was hardly a day that passed
that some young hero wasn't setting out to prove his worth as a dragon
slayer, why should this one be any different? But this Slayer was
different. He was not only annoyingly persistent in his quest to exterminate
dragons, but he also had great hair. In fact, there was much talk that
his hair was really too nice, and some dragons hated him more for his
wonderful locks than they did for his incessant killing (except of
course for the ones that he killed, who minded the killing very much, though
they hated his hair too).
Over the span of many years, it became apparent that this upstart with
his unbelievably stylish mane was actually a bit of a problem. In fact,
if he kept at it he might actually become a threat to all dragons
everywhere. For the first time in as long as any living dragon could
remember, a council was called. All of the dragons all across the country
slipped secretly from their lairs, and gathered in a very secret and
unknown island (an island so secret and unknown that half the dragons forgot
how to get there and had to stop and ask for directions).
Once all of the dragons were gathered, the meeting began. It was a long
drawn out affair because, on the whole, dragons have fairly short
attention spans. There was much bickering over who amongst them was the
strongest of all attending. In the end, the oldest and wisest of them
proposed that those dragons who couldn't stop bickering about who amongst
them was indeed the strongest should fly to the town of the hunter, and
each in turn attempt to slay the dragon slayer, bringing back a few of
his curly locks as proof of their success.
Such a bold and dangerous mission as this cause a great number of the
dragons to declare that they were, in fact, quite feeble. A few of them
suddenly began to feel under the weather and decided that a few days
lair-rest would have them right as rain again. A good handful
conveniently rushed off to use the little dragons room, instead of sticking around
to back up all of the big statements that they had made only a few
moments ago. In the end there were only three still willing to face the
test. Before the council there stood two tall aged dragons, their scales
shining ruby and gold respectively in the dim torchlight. Beside them,
barely visible over the top of the massive dragon table, was a young
and slightly mangy dragon whose scales reflected the light with a rather
sickly green tint. There was much scoffing and chuckling behind claws
at the third entry, but it was his hide up for grabs, so in the end it
was decided that he could participate.
A day passed, and in the morning the ruby dragon flew to the home of
the Dragon Slayer where she roared out her challenge. There was much
panic in the town, not because they didn't think that the Slayer would be
victorious, but because their brave hero was off that day killing the
ruby's kin. None of the lowly peasants had ever picked up a sword, let
alone slain a dragon. When they finally pushed a sniveling sorry sight of
a man out the front gate to deliver the message, the dragon apologized,
roared out the time that she would return the next day, and promptly
ate the messenger as compensation for her troubles.
The sun peeked over the horizon the next morning and saw that every
villager in the town was already up. The sun briefly considered going back
down again, since no one had bothered to wait for him to come up in the
first place, but then he remembered that he still owed the moon a
rather handsome sum of money, so he decided it was best to keep moving. Far
below the sun, the clantown was hustling and bustling with busy people.
It had been decided the day before by the wisest of the city folk that
the best way to defeat this dragon was to cheat.
Upon his return, the Dragon Slayer agreed, for his entire band of
dragon slaying chums were busy nursing their hangovers after yet anther week
of successful carnage. He pretended that he'd thought the whole thing
up himself, and began overseeing the construction of a shallow pit that
was dug beyond the city walls. As the sun heaved himself off of the
horizon and wobbled uncertainly in the air at the very start of the day,
the pit was ready, and many exhausted citizens were affixing great
sharpened beams of wood securely into the ground.
The only person who wasn't yawning and nodding off that fine morning
was the Dragon Slayer himself, who had tottered off early to get a good
night's rest. He had been up for several hours, getting his hair to look
just so, before he had returned to the pit to check progress. He
strutted the length of the great hole, calling out orders that no one
listened to, until the last great wooden beam had been secured and the last
tired townsman had climbed out of the hole
The women emerged out of the dim great hall, blinking and shading their
eyes from the sun, carrying between them a great bundle of cloth. They
had spent all night smearing it with dirt, and weaving grasses and
twigs into the fabric, until it looked very much like the earth itself. It
was a long and laborious process the cover the hole with the large
cloth, and there was much panic then a dragon's shadow passed over the
proceedings. As it turned out, it was only a small, mangy green dragon that
was simply flying by. Since the hard working people of the town had
told the Slayer to shove it hours ago, he jumped on a horse and rode off
after the dragon, waving one of his twin daggers menacingly and yelling
his challenge. The small and rather pathetic creature only watched
with mild amusement as it flew away.
Finally, the pit was finished and the signs of the work that had been
done were cleared away. The Dragon Slayer was hunted down and herded
back into the city gates. A few unlucky people were forced to stay awake
in order to keep the Slayer from wondering into his own trap. The Slayer
patted down a few stray hairs he'd disrupted on his noble ride as he
told his weary Dragon Slayer-sitters all about his victory to come.
The ruby dragon arrived precisely when she said she would and again
roared out her challenge. The city gates creaked slowly open to reveal a
man dressed all in black, his twin daggers strapped at his hips. He took
a few slow, calculated steps forward and narrowed his eyes as he
surveyed the dragon. The great red dragon rose up onto her back legs and
scorched the ground to her left with a great ball of flames. It was lucky
for the Slayer that the flames missed the great cloth by only a few
short inches or he probably would have been eaten by the first dragon to
ever come to challenge him. The flames, however, did not touch the cloth,
and the dragon gave a few great beats of her great wings, rose slightly
into the air and landed just in front of the Slayer. To her great, if
not short-lived, confusion the ground gave through and she was
immediately impaled upon hundreds of great wooden beams, which caused her to die
rather instantaneously. The Dragon Slayer rushed forward with his two
rather tiny daggers, and poked the dragon a few times to ensure that
there was no doubt to the role he had played in the death of the beast.
After a good day's rest, the town's folk woke to find a triumphant
Dragon Slayer, and a big mess. It took the better part of the afternoon to
clear away what was left of the big ruby dragon, and once she was gone
there was much arguing about what exactly should be done with the great
hole, though most people agreed once the stakes were removed it would
make quite a nice pool. Unfortunately, in the middle of the discussion,
a great, gold dragon gave a deafening roar before sweeping low over the
crowd. He landed squarely in the middle of the hole, which he had
failed to see due to his stunning, crowd-buzzing aerial acrobatics.
There was a bit of a stunned silence, which the Slayer broke by shoving
his way through the gathering and poking the dead golden dragon with
his minute daggers. Most everyone in the town decided to ignore the
absurdity of the whole affair, and groan at the thought of repeating the
task of removing yet another dragon corpse. However, the improbability of
two dragons falling into the same hole in one day caught up with one of
the young men. He went quite mad and spent the rest of the day
insisting that the sky was falling.
In the end, it was decided that as long as dragons were going to keep
showing up and goring themselves, the great hole in the ground would be
left as it was. Again the clantown's people set to work removing the
newly dead dragon, bit by little bit. The hole would stay, but the corpse
would not. As the good people began the daunting task, the Dragon
Slayer slipped away to enjoy his victory far from the toils of the common
man.
He was sitting in the town square, thinking up a wonderful tale to tell
the next bunch of tourists about how he once killed two dragons in one
day, single-handedly saving the entire town from its demise when he
noticed a shadow drift over the sun. Very perturbed that something might
actually come between him and a good tan he glanced up, fist raised to
curse the cloud that blocked the light. Unfortunately that was the last
thing the Slayer ever did. To his shock, he raised his fist into the
open jaws of a rather small, emerald-green dragon, who was swooping down
out of the sky. The victorious dragon snapped the Dragon Slayer up and
flew off into the sunset.
"And that children, is how I became known as the strongest dragon in
all the land." The great, green dragon pointed to the wall where he kept
all his trophies. In one corner, wearing a very surprised look, was the
head of a young man with absolutely unbelievable hair.
"Tell us another story Papa!" a gaggle of little green drakelings
chorused.
The old dragon sat back, thinking for a moment, and he grinned. "Did I
ever tell you about the time that I was declared the best looking
dragon in all of Medievia?"
The moral of this story? If the dragons told the tales they'd win from
time to time too.
Author's Note: The idea for this story came from the portal mob for the
old 59 clantown. The story is set in that town, but since The Defenders
of Divine Providence have recently disbanded and the clan town no
longer exists, I didn't make any references to it in the story itself.
Special thanks to the creators of 59 for the inspiration for this quirky
little tale.
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