Tales of Urath: of Dragons and Drakes

Table of Contents

Dedications

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter 1: Helm and the Frost Drake

Chapter 2: Lord Kavalla and the Swamp Drake

Chapter 3: Shand Ji’s Oasis

Chapter 4: Guardian of the Copper Desert

Chapter 5: The Forest Dragon Inn

Chapter 6: Lair of the Forest Lord

Chapter 7: Backwoods Dealings

Chapter 8: The Light of Neuwaullen

Chapter 9: Tempestus Adactus

Chapter 10: The Great Hrague Mor

Chapter 11: Wizard of the Silver Spire

Chapter 12: The Last Monk of Mao Shin

Chapter 13: A Pearl Revealed

Chapter 14: Deathly Healing Waters

Chapter 15: C Mao Shin the Jade

Chapter 16: Of the Nine Pearls

Chapter 17: The Grand Father

Chapter 18: The Grand Mother

Chapter 19: Don’t Kill the Messenger

Chapter 20: Helm Returns

Chapter 21: Welcome to the Silver Spire

Chapter 22: The Wrecking Crew

Chapter 23: The Treasure Chamber

Chapter 24: The Battles Begin

Chapter 25: Kavalla’s Escape

Chapter 26: The Grand Battle

Chapter 27: Consequences and Aftermath

Epilogue I: Debrief

Epilogue II: Elemental Musings

Epilogue III: Facing the Unknown

Maps

Copyright 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or used in any manner without written

permission of the copyright owner except for the use of

quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination

or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,

living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Book design and illustrations

By Arthur J Dorety III

Maps by Arthur J Dorety III

Software used for maps and all illustrations:

Eon Vue

Poser

DAZ Studio

Maxon ZBrush

Adobe Creative Suite

Inkarnate Fantasy Map Creation

ISBN 978-1-66786-773-1

First Edition September 2022

Published by

Sourland Mountains

Media Arts

And

Book Baby

Dedications

Dedicated to the late great Naoma (mom) Dorety. For her unconditional love and support. And for being a shining example of strength against the odds and being able to achieve ones goals no matter how unattainable they may seem.

Special thanks to Emily Su for her editing, imagination and inspiration. Her thoughts and ideas are now a part of this world.

Introduction

Welcome reader. The following is an introduction to Urath as told by a visitor from another world and dimension. I am Master Thelon Monc, historian and cloister for the Collegium Magica. I have converted the author’s writing into Common Urathian though I cannot decipher his name as he signs in pictographs. The journal these excerpts are from is a personal record that appears to have been written to purposely be left behind to inform future generations. This journal and many journals written in unknown languages and even with complex pictographs were found in an abandoned tower in southern Tirnerthol amongst the volcanoes that form the beginning of the Barrier Mountains. The tower is now in ill repair and fully surrounded by an old lava flow thought to be about four hundred years old. To further confirm the time, the inhabitants used the Old Messinian calendar as well as some other form of dating that is likely referencing their own calendar and time of their home world.

The former inhabitants used the Old Messinian word for wizard to describe who or what they were. The basement of the tower is filled with hardened magma, so there is no way to know how deep it goes and what may have been lost. Information gathered from some other journals written in Old Messinian imply there were at least four levels below ground level.  The final entry to this particular journal indicates that the former owners of this tower escaped a fiery fate by exiting through some sort of portal they could create and moving on to another world.

Common Urathian, also called Cu, is the most used language in Tirnerthol, Gotodonia, Terra Monstrum, the Aegirhjem Isles and the Vadis Archipelago. Thus my choice for translation publication. As for the smaller island continent in the southern Aegirhjem it is still largely unknown physically and only in occasional instances have the people been seen at sea and among trade markets at the Aegirhjem Isles. Some can speak a broken form of Cu, but with a heavy accent presumably due to their own cultural language.

Further editions to this series will reveal more about these southerners. The Wizards of the Tower were able to infiltrate their land and makes some remarkable observations.

The excerpts included here introduce the author, his people, a mission and an outsider’s observations on us natives of Urath. They concern the basics of the Divine and their interaction with our reality and focusing on the dragon gods, the Grand Father and the Grand Mother.

The author also reveals some details on their mission of exploring parallel realities of different worlds. Finally, also included is a brief description of the creation and corruption of the Nine Pearls. A new discovery is also included concerning a prophecy by the Grand Father that current scholars were unaware of and is now understood to have been kept secret on orders from the cloud dragons. Emagean Stormcloud was forthcoming when presented with this evidence.

It is not uncommon lore that dragons and drakes are of Divine origin. But that happened in the deep past. The speculations and studies of this author and his group imply that Urath might have been the first mortal world to have received the dragons and then the drakes. Humanoids have been living alongside all dragons at least as long as we have first marked our history. It could be that dragons were the first self-aware beings of Urath, not humanoids. I can imagine us in the past being intolerable in our most ancient and primitive state.

Master Thelon Monc

Messin 904-02-25

Concerning Urathian’s interaction with outerrealm entities and understanding of the mono or uni verse in context with the multiverse and multiple realities.

The Urathians’ call them the Divine. That is possibly a better descriptive than many other worlds use for the same entities. The Urathians have a much better understanding of the reality behind the nature of the so-called Divine, yet despite that, they still treat them as superiors that can control the fate of their lives and culture, not unlike other worlds’ view of Gods, Supremes, Overlords and so many other names for the same entities.

As understood by Urathians, the Divine are beings from outside the normal space and reality they live in, but understand it is still within the confines of a greater, yet singular universe. The Divine have no power or ability beyond this universe that they are tied to. However, they are powerful super humanoids, and they live and come from their own immortal realms on the other side of astral space. They can transverse astral and even ethereal space at will and enter our mortal and material space. In the early times of the formation of the universe this was not uncommon, but their constant warring with one another was creating excessive chaos and destruction that was disrupting the natural formation of life in the central space of the universe.

When the first humanoids appeared, these Divine, Gods or whatever discovered that they could draw energy from these unique beings simply from their emotions, especially adoration or love, but also fear and hate. This in turn created an even greater disruption and level of chaos as to not allow any form of order to develop in the mortal universe. Finally, an unknown group of beings that had never been seen before by any Divine or any mortal appeared and created laws of intervention and a directive to not interfere in excess with the development of mortals. They held great power in that they could rob any Divine of their power and energy in the mortal universe. They declared that chaos is allowed to inspire growth, but there needs to be order as well to allow for that growth. They simply called themselves the Keepers of the Balance. To aid them they enlist mortals to watch individual worlds and give them semi divine powers to help them run interference if Divine become too involved in a single world.

Many Divine agreed to this balance, but many are also greedy and even addicted to the energy they can absorb from these mortals. This power transcends their normal superhuman abilities and can give them the strength to destroy worlds and even systems and galaxies. If left unchecked one could conceivably cause this universe to collapse destroying all life inner realm and the outer realm.

The astral and ethereal are the oceans and rivers that allow mortals with the ability and immortals to move about the universe in the outer or inner realms and even lead to the outer multiverse, but there is a barrier there that cannot be crossed or broken except by the One, it is said. As a scholar I do not believe in the One, but I do accept there may be super beings or a super being that can move among the myriad of universes that float in the multiverse.

Perhaps the most confusing is the existence of parallel realities which are the manifestations within one universe of alternate and possibly infinite other realities all happening at once of this one universe. That means similar mortals and immortals that exist but vary from one another to lesser and greater degrees. Even the immortals or Divine, as Urathians call them, cannot escape this, though some try to control other dimensions and contact their other selves to gain even more power. The Keepers of the Balance seem to be singular and exist as single beings through all versions of reality and therefore defend and keep the balance throughout this mono or uni-verse and all its possible outcomes.

We, meaning myself and my compatriots, are aware of multiple realities and have been for nearly fifty Urathian years, which equals about the same as my world. We are in fact from a near parallel reality to this one. More detail on our agenda can be found in other journals, but we won’t have time to translate them.

Concerning Urath, most spectacularly in many nearby parallel realities, Urath does not exist making it unique to this dimension. Our kind has not traversed enough dimensions yet to see if there is, in fact, another Urath, though we have crossed one hundred and twenty-even at this time. If another existed, it would likely have a similar vibration. Yet there is a hypothesis that a major changed could cause a more extreme vibration and make the new reality more distant on many levels. Possibly something like a natural planetary calamity including extinction size events.

Another world whose origin is this reality also has a limited number of realities. The inhabitants of that world have a similar name for their world. They call it Earth and there are fifty-two known realities known to surround them. Other than Urath, that is the fewest number of realities around one world. Of the one hundred and twenty-seven realities we have visited, we have visited eighty-two worlds that have nearly as many realities with most likely having more than the three hundred seventy-eight we have seen so far. In these cases, the differences are often minute in nearby dimensions with broader and even stranger differences the further away from the origin or prime reality. Finding the prime reality is our goal and understanding if there is one prime reality or if some worlds could have their own prime origin outside the prime of the birth of this universe.

These studies seem to indicate that Urath may be in the original or prime reality from the birth of this universe. However more evidence is needed. Upon viewing our own world within this dimension or reality we found that the inhabitants were behind us in technology and high magic. That said, we did visit some distant realities of our own world to see that some were very advanced and regularly interacting with so called divine as near equals and on the other hand a few worlds had no interaction with the Divine and still others were still primeval worlds without a dominant sapient lifeform. Such worlds were sometimes inhospitable to our physical forms and required special protections to explore. This is inconvenient for my guild and will be left to other exploration guilds.

As always, we do our best to avoid improper interaction among the citizens and keep our information to ourselves unless the local societies seem prepared. Urath has created a unique situation and we must confer with the Oversite guild before returning for further research. As it stands now, a local volcano has begun to erupt and will eventually surround this tower. When the time is proper, we will portal out and maybe leave behind some of our observations for future guild explorers or even possibly to be discovered by local inhabitants.

Messin 904-03-06

Concerning the dragonkind of Urath and their origin from the Divine Grand Father and Grand Mother.

The dragons of Urath are rather unique. Though Urath itself is possibly a world of single reality, the Divine who interact with it are still one aspect or one version of many other versions. Nearly all the Divine that interact with Urath are unaware of alternate realities and therefore other versions of themselves. Generally, this is true of most beings, mortal and immortal throughout this universe. My people are a miniscule fraction that traverse alternate realities and that is because we respect the growth and order of the universe. We have been visited and warned once by the Keepers of the Balance about interacting with those from alternate or parallel worlds.

Another exception to multiple realities are the Dragon Divine. The Grand Father and the Grand Mother are extremely ancient Divine and appear to be among the first immortals to appear in the universe. They represent more evidence that the reality of Urath may be the Prime Reality. The Dragon Divine seems to be singular in existence and origin. However, they have been seen in other realities not related to Urath. Like all the Divine they draw their extra power from the adoration of mortals, yet they are among a few Divine that produced super powered children that consider them to be their parents or superiors. This sort of unconditional love from mortals immediately boosted their awareness and influence. As the two Dragon Divine spread their kin across the universe of this reality it also gave them the kind of power that other Divine seek and crave from worshippers that normally have to be converted to that Divine’s particular philosophy. The Dragon Divine created beings that are their children that they cherish and protect. In turn the children offer up near unconditional love giving great power to their creators.

In those early days the Divine Dragons loved and lived for peace. Their beauty often spoken of; he, sometimes called Father Pearl and she, the Rainbow mother. His iridescent scales shimmer and glow pearly white and his wings like vast clouds. Clouds of calm and peace or they could be like storm clouds and winds like a hurricane and his voice louder than thunder, able to break mountains.

Her scales shimmered like oil on water, with rainbow colors shifting and rippling across her body as she moved. Her voice was musical yet when faced with a fight she could attack with fire or ice. For ages they protected their own and helped maintain peace and balance.

This seemed to work fine for uncounted millennia until the Grand Mother felt that the five initial children they had conceived were not enough. They had been conceived by his vision and brought to life from her belly. She felt they all paid greater homage to the Grand Father and not enough to her. She felt they should see them as equals. And she craved more power. My compatriots and myself will never truly know the state of the first children and if they favored one over the other. I was able to have a conversation with an ancient cloud dragon that said legend told that the children held both in the same respect, but even she was not there in those times from so long ago.

The story goes that the Grand Mother became jealous and asked for more children imparted with her vision, but the Grand Father received some sort of higher council said this should not be and so denied her. So in secret the Grand Mother found a way and with the help of another Divine being conceived of another five dragons. But they were born of too many negative emotions and intents. The birth of those five distorted the form of the Grand Mother and corrupted her children. Despite that, she taught her children that she was their true protector and do not trust the Grand Father or his children. Her offspring were soon called drakes to distinguish them from the first dragons, though they are dragons as well in complete shape and form and intelligence and abilities. So distorted from her original form, the Grand Mother would not return to the realm where her former partner and mate dwelt and made a new home for herself in an outerrealm ruled by the Divine that had helped her.

That Divine is one known as Asmodeus here on Urath and on a few other worlds. The story says that Asmodeus expected the Grand Mother to die upon birth, but her primeval nature and power were too great and she lived. When she learned that Asmodeus had tried to deceive her, she proclaimed him an eternal enemy. She then spread the seed of her new children on as many worlds as she could while also gathering worshipers. It took the Keepers of the Balance and the Grand Father and some of his Celestial Dragons to stop her spread and reign her in. Now the Grand Father gathered scholars and others to see if there was a way to unite dragonkind. The Nine Pearls of Wisdom were conceived, yet even that turned into failure.

To this day the dragons and drakes war with one another on Urath and a great number of other worlds in this universe. The Grand Mother understood alternate realities and managed to seed some of her children in other dimensions. However, she does not have the control or reach there that she would like. In response some of the first children have also been sent to any of these parallel realities to keep the drakes in check. Meanwhile on Urath the likeliness of a war is brewing as the fire drakes try to exert power and dominance at the urging of the Grand Mother. It is unfortunate as it can only end in disaster and misunderstanding.

The lava continues to flow and spread. We now have a filter barrier around the tower to protect us from the toxic air. It won’t be much longer before we must leave.

Messin 904-03-07

Concerning the creation of the Nine Pearls of Wisdom and the plan to use them re-unite all dragonkind.

As a follow up on the last entry this concerns the dragons of Urath and their potential reconciliation. As described to me by the ancient cloud dragon queen of the Silver Spire, the Pearls were created with powers that the holder could control and wield if they had the power and confidence to not be overwhelmed by the power within the pearl. Leaving detail of the Pearls’ creation to another entry, it should be known that, when gathered together with nine wielders the pearls were to remove the corruption and curse that the Grand Mother imbued upon herself and her children during their birth. The idea