Emberscale Alchemist

The next year proceeded quickly, with a certain hatchling finally understanding the trick of the door's latch and making her departure. Several designs followed before someone eventually started barring the door whenever the hatchlings were by themselves. Even that proved insufficient as she just used the bone tools she'd fashioned from the remains of her meals for the latch, to lift the bar through a crack. Korse found himself, yet again, employing Elder Bolst to hinder a certain wayward hatchling. The old trapper finding the situation both hilarious and promising, Kora was one of his best after all.

The Culling has proceeded at an unexpectedly low rate, with thirty-two surviving their second year, generally there were not many more to fall to sickness, injury, or accident from here on, leaving this the largest single clutch out of all the clan's hatcheries. Over half surviving being near unprecedented.

With the door defeated, Korse had once again grown to fear the unexpected grasping of his tail by the now larger, but still smallest of her clutch, hatchling and the utterance of "Why?" that surely followed. The only times he was guaranteed peace being when the Matrons were there for their lessons. They had moved on to more interesting topics like numbers and how to make tools and daily necessities and were consistently managing to keep the little one's attention for the time being. Korse had also mostly made up his mind on the pick of his clutch for this year, if nothing unfortunate happens.

This particular day the Matrons were to tell another story from the history of the Clan to the hatchlings. The darkest day of their history. Korse departed for the Elder's Chambers for the morning, he did not want to be there for the retelling. He could only listen to this particular tale so many times and he'd been hearing it for all his years in the hatchery. They always tell this story before their third-year ends, so that they can go into their apprenticeships knowing what the clan lost those centuries ago. Why their lives felt incomplete and they trade with the lowly humans instead of giving freely to their kin as they did within the clan.

"Good morning hatchlings. Elder Kles will be joining us again today for the telling of an important tale. Something that though centuries past still affects our Clan, and all the Clans, to this day." Matron Rels introduced the aged elder joining her again. Kles took over the space reserved for teaching and most of the hatchlings quickly congregated, knowing her lessons were both important and that she always told tales of wonder and Dragons.

"Now, what I have to tell you about today is not a tale of greatness like our origin, nor of fancy like those of the Drakkiri. Or even of our grand patron, Emberscale. Though he will have a part to play." She began, dramatically shaking her head as she spoke, "No, today I am here to tell you about the end of an era. The darkest day in our long history. And one that changed the very shape of the world of Icara." Her voice raising as she spoke, lending a grandiose picture to her words and catching the attention of all present. "Today, I am here to tell you about The Night of the Blood Skies."

Small gasps could be heard amongst many of the young kobolds, they had heard the name many times, and a certain inquisitive little girl has asked of it repeatedly. It being the one story she could never get any hints or clues out of Korse or the minders. The one question that was always met with a 'When you're older'. She was practically vibrating in anticipation of finally hearing the tale denied to her. Her siblings on the other hand, they could see the looks on the Matron's faces. Could see the apprehension and displeasure. They took no joy in telling this tale and the rest of the clutch reflected this somber attitude a little better.

"This tale begins years before that fateful night." She began, her voice taking on a tone that filled the little room without being loud. "Our patron and the other Great Dragons sent us kobolds out around the world. The sent us to gather things they had never needed before, oils and woods, gems and metals, even bones and blood." A note of confusion in the last as many of the hatchlings grimace at the mention. "For a great working the Matriarch bade of them, and thus us, to gather these things." Pausing in all the right moments to draw in even the least interested of the hatchlings. "We did our duty faithfully, a fact many now wish we had not. But what could we do but fulfill the Great Dragon's wishes, for that is, was, our reason for being." Matron Kles shook her head, disappointment and loss clear upon her scales. Whether that disappointment was in their ancestors completing their task, or in those suggesting that they should have denied their patrons, could not be told by her little audience.

"Years passed and we continued to delve and dig. Stone and metals, precious and mundane, were sent back to our homeland. While our cousins built and toiled, conceived and created, all to the grand design of the Matriarch." Gesturing in wide arcs alongside her words to conjure images of the great workings in her audience's minds. "All those things we gathered were crafted and shaped by our cousins, some abroad while the materials were fresh. Most back in our ancient home. Building great rings and designs upon the earth and even in the very skies surrounding her great citadel." Notes of wonder in her voice as she spoke of the works occupying the heavens above.

A feat seldom achieved, the young hatchlings all stared in rapt attention. Not even a peep of a question from them, even the young girl who could always be counted on to ask something at any possible pause.

"Her plan unknown to us, but unneeded. Until one day, it was done." Spoken with a mournful finality, like the last stone on a cairn. "The Matriarch recalled all of her kin, all of the Great Dragons and even the whole of their progeny. From all across Icara they were called to her great citadel. A palace built upon the highest peak of the tallest mountains upon her lands. We kobolds remained spread out, as did what few of our cousins of the Drakkiri who had left the homeland, as what came next was a task for the Dragons alone."

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Pausing her retelling she tries to give the young kobolds context fore what will come next. "Before I tell you of this great task you must understand another fact of our world. One that aside from this single instance is meaningless to our lives. But on that day became the only thing that truly mattered." Her words quick, an attempt to avoid losing the short attentions of her audience. "As I have told you once before, our world, Icara, is sealed. The god of man, the Radiant, decreed it so. All who would violate this commandment face his divine wrath. In his arrogance even the dragons, who could abide the commands of none but their great mother, the Matriarch, were subject to this prohibition" Kles speaks of this god of man with disdain, as it had the gall to impose its will upon the Great Dragons.

"We know now through the pieces left behind and years of divinations and communions with the spirits, that the great work was indeed a means to open a gateway from this world. Not with which to depart it, but one through which to bring the Matriarchs remaining kin. Her goal to bring her brethren, left to the whims of war in ancient past, to her shores for succor." Her words highlighting the benevolence of the act rather than the folly of defying a god. "Our brethren and our cousins of the Drakkiri were been able to put enough of the pieces together to learn that much."

"Her intentions were noble, but the results? Catastrophic." A pregnant pause letting the gravity of her words echo in the chamber. "None know what truly occurred that night, as none were ever found who were there to tell the tale. What we do know, and why it is called the Night of the Blood Skies, is that the whole of Icara witnessed a sanguine radiance permeate the skies from the direction of our former home. They both heard and felt a great roar of the earth and shaking of the world that followed." Evoking an image of bloody destruction in the little minds in front of her, eliciting shivers and several of the youth shuffle nearer to one another for comfort. "This crimson illumination lasted a full day and lit the night with a blood red sunset upon the empire of dragons." To the little ones who had never experienced the light of the sun, the image was awe inspiring, and utterly incapable of impressing upon them the utter size and scope of its reality.

"A storm covered Anazul's Clutch for weeks, battering ships and disrupting magics. When it finally cleared the entire continent had been scoured to stone and sand." Tears streamed down both Rels and Kles' faces as she concludes this portion of the story. The loss of the dragons still hanging heavy over them, even though they were both too young by centuries to have ever seen the Great Dragons.

"Our ancestors debated long with our Drakkiri cousins, to return to our former home and search the now desolate lands. To find some trace of Dragonkind." This part of her tale devoid of the hope its subjects seek, she knew what would come of their search. "But as we still teach today, we are creatures of the earth, we gather and provide. Exploration and discovery are not within our nature now, nor were they then. And so, we chose to remain, to live as we have always lived. To dig and delve, to gather and procure. Though we found ourselves with no one worthy to provide the harvest of our toils. Instead we turned to trade with the humans nearby." Spoken as though trading with the humans was shameful, not equal to their noble bearing as children of the dragons.

"Our cousins could not abide such a course. They departed bit by bit, tribe by tribe, until there were none remaining outside the shores of Anazul. There they could be found for years and years to follow, frequently sending news of their search. They requested supplies and provisions which we gladly provided them all they asked and more." She paused, knowing what came next was another blow to kobolds all across Icara. "But contact dwindled." More tears shed for those lost long before her time. "Until not even a century after we lost our patrons, we lost too our cousins. Leaving kobolds alone upon this world, the only draconic heritage to remain."

Stepping aside from her place of honour in front of the hatchlings, Kles turns to her subordinate, "Matron Rels, I find myself wearied from the telling. Could you conclude our lesson while I sit for a moment?" The elderly kobold looking slightly unsteadied, the tale always taking a toll on her.

"Of course, Elder, gladly" As Kles steps aside and finds a space upon the floor to be seated, a small kobold approached. After a gentle tug upon her tail in greeting, she smiles and sits alongside the Elder. She was oddly silent for this particular hatchling. Kles giving her a pat upon the head and a sad smile as Rels began her conclusion of the lesson.

Rels' voice taking up the tale with a more studious tone, not containing the passion and pain of her predecessor. "We have learned much since the Drakkiri left for the shores of home. That they built ports upon the coasts of the continent, now commonly referred to by the surface dwellers as 'The Desolate'." Her pronunciation of the title scornful, that they would call their ancestral home as such. "That they welcomed all who wished to explore those lands and find the truth of that dreadful night into their cities. That slowly, over years and decades, the number of Drakkiri in their own cities dwindled until none remained. Some claim that one by one they wandered into the desolate wastes never to return, some say it was a mass exodus, and others that they ended their own lives." The last said as though it were the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "We dismiss the latter musings as the ignorance of the surface races, we could never believe those bearing the heritage of the Dragons would do as such." Punctuating the statement with a laugh of derision for those who would entertain such thoughts.

"All we can say for certain is that they departed from their cities and were never seen again." A shrug showing her thoughts on the matter. "Where they went and why they did so, was something they never told us. Had they found some trace of the Great Dragons we are sure they would not have left us behind. So ultimately, we remain in our own ignorance." Rels clears her throat and looks across the pupils, some remain taken by the somber mood, some nearing the end of what attention span they can muster and glancing about for something to occupy themselves.

Returning to her typical lecturing tone, "I believe that this is a good time to end our lessons for the day. Think upon what we have imparted today, what it means to be a kobold left behind in this world and our role within it. What it means to be the sole bearers of the true draconic lineage upon Icara. And how our prudence in living as we always have has kept us here, to this day, instead of chasing the past and becoming one with it like our dear cousins." Her grim warning, that failing to follow the ways of the past could lead the whole of their race to their end.

Departing from the chambers, with Rels having to get the door for the Elder once again, left the young hatchlings in a dour mood. Their play less enthused then usual. All except for one, who was scowling at the Matron's departing statement.