Dreams of Blood and Fire

A sleeping dragon attracts adventurers.

A thousend years ago, the elf Eäruwil, the last of her people, imprisoned the dragon Ironhorn under the ruins of the city Aanui, in a distant part of the world known to us nowadays as the Valley of Dreams. Today, those misty ruins are settled by orcs and other beasts. Caravans keep their distance, and even the count's men don't dare to go there, and why would they anyway – everything of worth has long been taken. The desolation of Ironhorn has long been forgotten, and barely anyone believes in such fairy tales anymore.

Eäruwil, however, hasn't forgotten. She rarely shows herself, but those who have seen her speak of a figure too beautiful for this world, wandering through the twilight woods, singing a melancholic song. No one has an idea what the song means, not even the count himself, seen time and time again to return from the forest, yearning and absent minded. Many blame Eäruwil for strange, gloomy dreams, common among the people here, but the elf doesn't sing her lullaby to them, and not even herself, but her old enemy, who sleeps an eternal sleep in the tomb under the ruins.

The orcs know to leave the dead alone but one cannot say that of everyone. Lately there's been talk of a group of vagabonds, sometimes called adventurers, lingering about in the area. Their leader seems familiar with the land, the taverns, and the legends, and it's not hard to guess where he's headed.

The last of the elvenkind, a lone wanderer in the woods, singing a lullaby to a dragon.

The elves know three kinds of death: violence, dark magic, and fading: when the wind turns and an elf understands they no longer belong. Then they simply are no longer. Long before Ironhorn appeared, have countless elves, among them the nobles of the elven city Aanui, gone this way.

In the time since Eäruvil imprisoned the dragon, the wind has turned numerous times. Ancient trees have died, ponds and clearings have disappeared, and the bird song is quite different when you hear it all alone. And now there are also the humans, always creating paths through where there never was one. And they pay no heed to the wind.

Dreaming, only the dragon stays, under the city where he slaughtered the last of her kind. He dreams of such savagery that Eäruvil can never allow into the world again. Life is sacred for every elf but for a Starborn like Eäruvil especially so. This is why she stays here, why she keeps singing. Not because these dreams, as horrible as they may be, are the only thing that has stayed the same for her. Not because he sometimes, in the dark winter hour, lets the bloodshead be and listens to the tune. Not because he, perhaps, can understand her loneliness…