Drakenshold did not give freely.
The crater was alive with silent tension, like a breath held for centuries. The land whispered in forgotten tongues. Shadows slithered where no sun shone. The deeper they walked, the more time seemed to bend. Hours stretched into days, and sleep became a memory buried beneath dread and willpower.
It took them five days to reach the heart.
Five days of navigating a landscape twisted by magic and madness. The very stone shifted when they weren't looking. Phantom roars echoed at dusk. And worst of all the dreams.
Each night they slept near the crater's edge, the trio suffered visions. Flickering firelight revealing ancient wars, broken crowns, and endless skies torn by wings too vast to comprehend. Rayan dreamed of dragons breathing ash into the world. Malrick saw a throne built of bones. Orien heard voices chanting his name begging him to return to something he'd buried.
But none turned back.
On the sixth day, they found it.
The beast.
It stood in silence before them coiled atop the crater like a god sculpted from shadow and flame. Not a mindless monster, but something ancient. Watching. Waiting. Testing.
They prepared for battle. They expected death.
But instead… the dragon spoke.
Not aloud, but into their minds. A voice like cracking stone and burning coals.
> "You seek to steal what was forged in the stars."
Rayan stepped forward, his hand steady. "We don't seek to steal. We seek to forge what the stars abandoned."
A long silence.
Then the dragon bowed its head.
> "Then take what you can carry… if your spirit can bear it."
It unfurled one wing massive, torn, but still blazing with embers, and scraped a single sheet of its scale-hide from its chest. The skin came away reluctantly, glowing faintly with power. It fell before them like a banner of war.
Rayan's legs nearly gave out. Orien muttered a prayer. Malrick only stared.
The dragon said no more. It turned, launched itself into the sky, and vanished into the clouds of Drakenshold leaving fire and silence behind.
[ Return to Ironspire ]
Their journey back took less time though none of them could say exactly how long. Time didn't feel right anymore. The land outside Drakenshold felt too quiet. Too normal.
But when the dark towers of Ironspire rose from the smoke once more, they felt the weight of what they carried, and of what had changed inside them.
The blacksmith was at his forge, surrounded by flame and thunder. He didn't look up at first. When he did, his hammer paused in mid-air.
He saw the leather-bound roll of shimmering, molten-scaled dragonhide on Rayan's back.
"…Oh My God…" he breathed. "You did it."
Malrick chuckled, voice hoarse. "Didn't think we would, did you?"
The blacksmith said nothing for a moment. Then turned away and muttered, "I'll need fire hotter than this."
He walked into the heart of his forge.
And for three days and three nights, the hammer never stopped.
No one was allowed near the forge. Smoke poured from the chimneys like the sky was bleeding. At night, the settlement glowed red, as if Ironspire itself was about to awaken.
And then.... he emerged.
His face was blackened with soot. His eyes were rimmed with exhaustion. But in his arms… were three swords.
Each wrapped in cloth. Each humming with power.
The First Blade: Orien
Orien stepped forward first.
As he touched the cloth, frost spread across his fingers. When he unwrapped it, the metal shimmered like starlight trapped in ice. The blade was smooth, crystalline, but not fragile cold, sharp, and still.
The moment his hand closed around the hilt, a rush of energy pulsed through him. The forge fires hissed as if struck by a sudden winter wind.
The blacksmith stared in awe.
"…It's drawing from your soul."
Orien looked at the blade, and for the first time in weeks, smiled faintly.
"I can feel the silence again."
The Second Blade: Malrick
Malrick approached with less reverence.
He gripped his sword before the cloth even fully fell away. The metal turned black instantly, the air around it warping like a heat mirage, but colder. The blade swallowed the light. Its edge was sharp, but undefined, like the memory of a wound.
"Seems fitting," Malrick muttered. "It doesn't shine. But it cuts."
Even the blacksmith took a step back.
The Third Blade: Rayan
Then came Rayan.
He touched the hilt, and something answered.
The cloth caught fire and burned away without heat. The sword beneath it was a contradiction ice at the hilt, rimed with frost… and flame at the blade, but not golden flame. Shadowfire. Black and red and alive.
The ground trembled slightly.
Rayan raised it, eyes glowing with the same fire. The forge crackled. Sparks danced around him like spirits.
He took a breath, and his voice rang clear not boastful, but certain.
> "The sword is in my hand… and the magic is in my veins."