DRAGON RAGE: ORIGINS.

[murderbaby]

WHO: Aziraphale, Julius, Val, Mhavos
WHAT: Everyone loves Canadian rappers.
WHEN: Probably around Harvestmere.
WHERE: The Storm Coast
NOTES: Stop dragon my heart around.

• For reference.
• Top levels in comments, feel free to make ur own.

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FINDER'S KEEPERS.

[murderbaby]

A dragon's lair. Excellent. Mhavos can't help but feel like a bloody dragon is about to pop its head out and murder them all, but at least they're where they ought to be. He picks up something, an oblong disk, iridescent in the half light.

Something like a smile curves his expression. "Is this- is this a dragon scale?" He asks no one in particular.

[degenere]

"My friend. It is a dragon scale," Val says, with great reverence.

This is an adventure, one that he is--perhaps to everyone's surprise--well-suited for. A scholar does not remain in a library or a classroom or an office. A scholar may be found--no, should be found--in the field. And fields are where Val has always preferred to be.

All this is to say that he is in this lair outfitted with his personal supplies and equipment which are, by turns, both finer and shabbier than equipment provided by Riftwatch. There is no waiting in line at the general storeroom of supplies for Val. Furthermore: shabby, in this case, refers to the well-worn look of his things. This is a man who has traveled, who has lived off the land and cheerfully eaten insects and shat in the woods and has been drawing dragon scales in the margins of his leather-bound journals since he was seven years of age.

He claps Mhavos on the shoulder as he leans in to peer at the scale in the poor light.

"And it is no artifact, but a true thing itself. Do you know what this means?"

[murderbaby]

Mhavos has learned a lot about Val during this expedition. Mostly, he's learned the volume of the great affection the man has for dragons. Strange, Mhavos had always figured that was a more Tevene affectation, but one can never quite predict the idylls of the nobility. He turns the scale in his hand, weighing it. He thinks it would look fine, mounted on his wall; he also thinks it far too gaudy for the likes of him, and he ought to donate it to Riftwatch's innumerable archives.

"It means," Mhavos says, "a dragon is missing its scale."

Another thing about nobles: there is no point in answering true. Their questions are always rhetorical.

[degenere]

"Oh, very clever."

He is a strange fellow, this Dalat. Very sharp. More amusing than one might expect. Do elves often have surnames? Beleth Ashara has one, of course. Or was Ashara a title? Val is still uncertain. Perhaps Dalat is a title, too. It is safer to say the full name, Mhavos Dalat, even in one's thoughts, or else risk saying aloud the wrong name someday.

But: the dragon scale.

"Still, you are correct as well as clever. A dragon is missing its scale. And I would suppose she is quite nearby. This would be one of the tubercler-shaped scales toward the dorsal area--the shape, you see--and the curve, there, at the bottom, will be for now less chitinous than if this example were several days old. If we are lucky, we will find more quite close by. Exciting, yes?"

[murderbaby]

"If one wishes to be killed by a dragon," Mhavos says. "A goal of yours?"

Still, he carefully places the dragon scale in one of his bags, away from anything that may scratch or crack it.

[degenere]

"Oh, I will not be killed," Val says with great confidence and self-assurance. And he is right. People like Val de Foncé are not killed. Instead they move smoothly through life, side-stepping tragedies and terrors that befall those lesser blessed than they. All of this goes without saying.

"But I do wish to see this dragon," he continues, conversationally. "Of course I have seen others. Do not mistake me: I am no amateur. It is more than a dragon is not so commonplace that one would grow tired of beholding it. I should love to be able to boast of beholding this one, one day."

[murderbaby]

People like Val de Foncé are killed all the time, in Mhavos' experience. A thought he keeps to himself, along with the quiet gush of self-loathing accompanying it.

"And how did you survive the other dragons? Speaking as I am, an amateur."

It's not necessary, Mhavos has found, to always puff up the egos of the nobility. Simply playing up one's own failings is often the same, and hurts Mhavos' pride none at all.

[degenere]

"By observing it from a safe and concealed distance, of course. Though I find it distasteful, I have made study of the dragon hunters. Their finishing methods are but sheer barbarism. Their stalking technique is what interest me. There are ways to create blinds, as one would use to hunt game for sport, but these are far more advanced. Think of the dragon's senses--a predator like no other. How soft one must touch upon these sharper senses, and how hard one might tread upon the senses that are blunter. Most of their kind do not see so well as they smell, for instance. So a hunter relies upon that. So, too, does the researcher in the field."

Here Val pauses to sigh, happily, caught up in his memory. There is such peace upon his face as he continues, "Ah, my friend. To have hidden among the craggy places of some mountain roost, tucked away in a narrow cave, with a woven thatch of twigs and brush ahead, scent obscured by oils, and to see a dragon alight, as lightly as a dragonfly, upon a stony peak. You cannot imagine. I hope someday you are to behold it for yourself. Perhaps soon. It is a thing of indescribable beauty that few have been permitted to see, but if the sight were mine to give, I would give it to everyone."

[murderbaby]

Mhavos lets the man talk. He's rather obsessed with dragons, isn't he? It's something to take note of for later, if he ever needs the man's favor. He also listens to the details, of course-- they're clearly well-researched and prescient. They may even soon be relevant. But this is not a conversation, it's a string of speeches where Mhavos will occasionally interject to give the Val a new subject on which to pontificate. He's played this role before.

"And would you," Mhavos says, looking at the detritus around them. Ah, look, a femur, "consider this a safe place from which to observe?"

[degenere]

Val abruptly stops walking so that he can look around them, and study their surroundings. His eyes narrow thoughtfully. He side-steps, to the left, and tips his head--then steps back to where he was, and tips his head the other direction.

He looks over at Mhavos.

"I would say that it is a place where we might be caught by a dragon before we can secret ourselves to make these observations. Is that a femur?"