The tunnel falls still after the blast. Steam curls from the anhkeg’s blackened shell, and the pale seam in the wall gapes wider beside it.
The Elder Knight steps over the carcass and stops squarely before the first dragon, his gaze fixed on the green flicker still moving under black scales.
The Elder Knight
You fight like no beast I know. Tell me plain, what are you?
The Fighter-Butcher lowers his weapon but keeps his feet set. The Scarred Knight watches the feed-hole, then the dragon, measuring both.
The Scarred Knight
If it means to turn on us, say so now. If not, prove that power serves something more than hunger.
The first dragon stands in the chamber opening, larger than the tunnel and stranger than stone, with the dead brood below and the exposed passage beside him. Their hunt is done, and the question begins.
+ Story Quest Added
Learn what the first dragon is
+ Scene Quest Added
Convince the knights his power serves more than hunger
“Being primarily black and green at the moment, but brraking off from full pristine white scales, would i be inclined to do black dragon magic and rituals etc on them, like make them bargain for their demanding inquiry about my identity?”
YES (Likely, rolled 27)
the first dragon
The darkness in my scales is not merely a color, but a hunger for the ancient, binding pacts of the deep earth.
A cold, rhythmic pulse emanates from the dragon, causing the shadows in the chamber to stretch and coil like living ink. The air grows heavy with the scent of ozone and damp, forgotten soil, suggesting that the dragon's power is not just raw force, but a conduit for something far older and more demanding.
“I grow more black then green and zip like night crawler all around the room at x3k speed”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +1)
The first dragon blurs into black-green streaks, a living shadow that skims the tunnel walls and coils back again.
The knights whirl on instinct, but he is already everywhere at once, and nowhere they can strike.
The Scarred Knight
By the stones... it moves like the dark between heartbeats.
When the dragon settles, the mist at his claws draws inward, as if answering a name the tunnel remembers.
The Elder Knight
Not a beast. Not merely a beast. Some old power wears him.
The Fighter-Butcher
Then tell us, dragon. Hunger alone does not make that shape.
In the widening seam, pale roots of light flicker once, and the dark around the dragon steadies into a crown-like halo.
“I leap as a quick flashing black images around the room, casting mirror image and leaping around like a fast blur. (((Like the x-men Nightcrawler)))”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +0)
The first dragon breaks apart into black-green flashes, and the tunnel fills with wrong-looking copies of him, each one snapping to a different ledge of shadow.
For one breath, the knights cannot tell which shape is real. Steel lifts, then hesitates.
The Elder Knight
By the old seals... he is not merely moving. He is splitting the dark itself.
The dragon lands again in the center of the ring of mist, and the false images peel away like smoke, leaving a fresh silence around him.
The Fighter-Butcher
That is not hunger. Hunger does not wear a room like a cloak.
The Scarred Knight
Then what are you, truly? Name it, dragon.
The pale roots of light in the breached seam flicker harder, and the tunnel seems to wait with him.
“I change gender them highest lvl wizard's spell”
FAILURE (Poor Arcana, rolled +2)
The first dragon gathers the breach’s stray dark like a breath drawn through clenched teeth. The mist tightens at his feet, then snaps outward in a thin ring, as if something inside the tunnel has answered him and refused.
His shape resists the change. The magic catches on him and slides away.
The Elder Knight
No illusion. The spell bites and finds no purchase.
The Fighter-Butcher
Then the question is not form, but source.
Black-green afterimages twitch around the dragon’s shoulders and fail to settle, leaving his outline sharper, stranger, harder to name.
The Scarred Knight
A thing that sheds names and keeps its core. What are you beneath it?
The pale roots in the breach flare once, and the tunnel answers with a low tremor of light. All three knights go still, watching the dragon as if the seam itself expects him to decide.
“I ask them, as i blacken the space, "who i am is more valuable then a kings wife ls for many nights, but in your purse, at home under your home in buried coin chest and your families bank hold you dont have enough to buy the identity of my name even, you want to know then trade me something more valuable"”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +1)
The dragon lets the dark around him thicken into a little throne of absence, and the tunnel goes quiet enough to hear dust settle on stone.
the first dragon
"Who I am is worth more than a king's wife for many nights. If you want my name, trade for it with something greater."
The Elder Knight
"Greater than coin, then. Good. I have spent my life among oaths, and I know a debt when I hear one."
The Fighter-Butcher
"Then take this, first dragon. We came to bury a beast and found a mind. That is worth naming."
The Scarred Knight
"A fair bargain, if you mean it. Tell us what price you set, and we will see whether we can pay."
The Elder Knight lowers his blade fully. The others follow, not in surrender, but in attention. Even the pale seam seems to hold its breath.
The Elder Knight
"Speak, then. What are you, when the hunger is not speaking for you?"
Quest Complete
Convince the knights his power serves more than hunger
Attribute Upgrade: Agility Good→Great