Dragonversationalists

Dragons are scary.  They are large, breathe magical horrible stuff, have huge claws that can rip things up, or tails that can break you in half with a swipe.  They come in all shapes and flavors, so its not a huge surprise the overall creature responsible for the fog was a dragon.  How it was doing it or why my explosion hurt it is a debate for dragon scholars (they exist I think maybe?), all I knew is that the creature was there in front of me now and looking to eat me.  Or it was until it transformed into an old woman, the snarling huge grey transparent beast fell away and an old hag in tattered rags remained.  Her body looked frail, and I could clearly see a rather large wound that she was cradling right under her heart.

"Traitor!" Her voice was strained, I could see a spittle of blood erupting with each breath, she had been badly wounded. Which explained why the dragon illusion fell away.

"I fail to see how I'm a traitor?" I was kind of confused by the accusation, but I've come to expect everyone to accuse me of being a traitor whether I'm on their side or not (though over the years I've betrayed quite a few people, so its not like its an accusation without merit).

"You side with butchers, you are one of us! And you betray us to go with them! Them and their pistols and rifles! We used to be gods! Now, now they can turn any peon in the world into a god, and you side with them!" The invention of better firearm technology has lead to this sentiment all over, in the Red Hand territory prior to the war that would dislodge them from power firearms were strictly controlled, even more so than magic users because of the danger TO magic users. Personally it never bothered me, I guess I saw the equalization of power between the two would more likely lead people to fear magic less. Which never has happened by the way, if anything people fear magic more despite having similar power on their hips, but alas being able to set a person on fire with a simple hand wave tends to scare someone more than having to pull a trigger.

"And you murdered people who did you no harm because they merely supply the instrument of destruction.  You and I are an example of why they make these weapons old hag, the difference of course being I stand with the weapon makers and you stand in their sights." She charged, an old frail creature desperate for revenge against the world for moving on without her. It was a cleaner death than she deserved, my sword sliced her head off and sent it rolling near the blackened crater of my black powder explosions. Her blood was a black fluid that flowed with viscosity of tar.  Whatever she was, it was probably best that I killed her before she could harm more people. I'm sure someone would say the same of me, but everyone who had that sentiment is pretty much dead or dies shortly after thinking it, funny old world isn't it?

And thus ended my time on Finley Island.  I'll write a wrap up tommorrow so you can find out how I left, what happened to the missing people, etc etc, I'm sure you're excited.  I'm excited!