(no subject)
Home assignment for ENGL-150 with Matthew Bloom, final draft, unrevisioned.
Dragon's Lair
"People die for wealth and birds die for food."
Dwarven proverb1
The snowstorm was raging. A small dirty wooden door opened, and an elf, a dwarf and a princess entered an empty tavern in a small village on the bottom of a mountain.
- “Three cups of the best ale!” was the first thing the dwarf said
These three adventurers were treasure hunters, and their ale supplies were exhausted long ago. The princess ran away from her kingdom. She needed money to start a new life. The dwarf was just a normal greedy dwarf, who loved nothing else but gold, weapons and ale. The elf was in his early hundreds. As many young elves those days, he thought that gold was the solution to all the problems. The elf was intelligent, but he had not yet got the wisdom that only comes with age.
After resting for a few days and refilling their supplies in the village, the adventurers finally set of for a quest to defeat the dragon, who lived in the mountains surrounding the village for the past few thousand years. Many warriors had tried to defeat him, but not a single one had ever come back.
After a few days of walking, the group of adventurers the entrance to a cave high in the Black Mountains of Death. The sky was covered with crimson clouds, and the air was filled with odor of rotting flesh. An elven spine crumbled under the massive feet of a dwarf making an ugly cracking sound.
- “What if the Dragon is too strong for us?,” asked the princess with a trembling voice.
- “Then you will die miserably in pain...” mumbled the dwarf.
- “I do not think I want to go inside anymore,” answered the princess in a confused voice.
- “OK, you can stay here. Anyway you are not helpful at all. That just leaves more gold for us,” said the elf.
Elf barely evaded a magic arrow, casted into his direction by the angry princess, and the group of adventurers: princess the sorceress, dwarf the fighter and elf the archer continued to descend to the lair. The smell of sulfur grew stronger and stronger with every level of the lair. Finally, the adventurers reached the source of the smell.
Blinded by the glowing of an enormous pile of golden coins, they at first did not recognize a gorgeous, majestic creature with red scales, yellow eyelids and wide scarlet wings napping on top of the pile.
After a brief discussion on the way of killing the dragon the adventurers started the battle. The princess cast An Ultimate Frozen Ball with spikes, the dwarf hit the dragon with a magic mithril battle axe, the elf shot a flame arrow right in the middle of Dragon's left eyelid. The arrow bounced off the eyelid, the frozen ball melted and the mithril axe cracked. The dragon woke up, yawned and coughed. Dragon's cough is deadly for normal people, but luckily princess succeeded to cast Magic Shield spell in time, so nobody was hurt.
- “Why did you come? I am not hungry”
- “Oh, no reason, really... We are going away right now!”
- “Oh, what a pity. Thanks for cleaning my scales with that frozen ball of yours. Hey, maybe before you leave you want to visit my treasure rooms?”
The adventurers were stunned.
- “Huh?” said the dwarf after a few seconds of silence
- “Not many people visit my lair lately. I am one of the last dragons left. I have three treasure rooms. I suggest a game: We visit all three rooms. The first one has many of the most valuable treasures in the world. The treasures in the second room are also priceless, but they are of a different kind. And in the third room there is only one treasure, but I am not telling you what it is before we go to that room. You can take any treasure you want from any room, but if you do so, you won't be able to go further. Do you want to play? If you don't, it is OK, I'll just eat you...”
didn't take too long for the adventurers to make a choice. The dragon opened the door, and after a while
the elf, the princess and the dwarf ended up in a large round hall with golden walls. Along the walls there were
enormous stalls filled with rings, pendants, crowns and diadems. Some of them seemed to be glowing, which
indicated their magical origin. While the dwarf and the elf were not really impressed, the princess stood in silence
at one of the stalls. She was staring at the golden diadem which was magically glowing with blue light.
- “Is this possible, that it is...” asked the princess with a trembling voice.
- “No, just a copy. But a good one! Has all the magical properties of the original!”
The princess didn't hesitate.
- “I want it!”
- “You can have it. Anyway, you probably don't need anything from the next room...”, said the Dragon in a kind of indifferent tone.
The dragon gave the diadem to the princess and gave her directions to the exit. After the princess had gone far away, the dwarf broke the silence.
- “Are you going to take anything from this room?” he asked in a hesitated voice
- “The treasures in this room all worth a lot of gold, but now that I think of it, there is one thing more important than gold - the ability to get gold from anyone whenever you want”
- “Oh, I think I know what you're talking about” said the dwarf, looking sadly at his cracked mithril axe.
After descending down what appeared to be a duffer, passing the bridge across a lava river, and walking down one of these passages you usually see deep in the dwarves' caves the elf and the dwarf finally stopped. In
front of them was a portal, behind which the elf could only see darkness.
- “This exceeds all my expectations, but it turns out that we were right about what was in this room after all,” said the dwarf, staggered by whatever only he could see with his dwarven eyes.
- “Indeed. Now proceed to my armory.”
The adventurers walked into a huge armory. The stalls were full of exotic weapons of all the ages. Legendary elven bows, hammers and axes crafted by the most skilled dwarven smiths of the First and Second Ages, magic staves with runes so old, that now they can barely be understood even by the members of the Highest White Council.
The dwarf and the elf kept walking down the armory, stopping from time to time to take a look at some exotic swords and weapons they did not know the name for. However, in the end they found something that made the stop in silence for a while. The Axe of Ghimli and the Bow of Elendin were lying next to each other on a table
at the end of the armory. And they weren't merely the copies. Nobody will ever know how the Dragon got them, but they were real, at least as much the dwarf and the elf could tell.
- “I'm taking the Axe”, said the dwarf
- “The treasure in the next room is more valuable than any weapon”
- “There is nothing more valuable than power, ” firmly replied the dwarf with a confident voice
- “Do as you wish. And what about you, Elf?”
- “I will go further”
The dwarf was surprised at the foolishness of his friend. He knew for sure that nothing could make the elf as powerful as the Bow of Elendin. And there was nothing more valuable in the world than power. But the Dragon is old and wise, the chance he made a mistake, making this room not the last one, is very low. Only if he had as much knowledge as the Dragon had, he could be sure about the rightness of his decision. The knowledge... Sandstone!3 But it was too late...
The elf and the Dragon were already far away. After walking for a while, they finally arrived at the entrance to the last treasures room. It was an old undecorated approximately five hobbits height wooden door with a few burns and cuts on it. When the Dragon was about to open the door...
- “Listen, elf. The princess chose a treasure she can sell for a lot of gold and get rich at once. The dwarf chose a powerful weapon. With this weapon he can defeat almost any enemy. The treasures in the room will not make you stronger or richer at once. You can still turn back.”
- “No, Dragon. Only if I knew what is in that room I could be sure about my decision”, now the Elf was almost sure that a key to knowledge was in the room
When they entered the room, the elf smiled. He was right, it was the library.
“Not every stone is a gem, not every rock holds value,
but even the lowest rock can hide a geode.”
a Dwarven proverb4
The End
Comments:
1) The quote actually belongs to Kuzko
2) Proverb origin is unknown, but it is not mine.
3) “Sandstone!” is a dwarven swear word. According to dwarves, it is the worst type of stone. For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandstone.
4) The source of this proverb is unknown (again, it is not mine).
Dragon's Lair
"People die for wealth and birds die for food."
Dwarven proverb1
The snowstorm was raging. A small dirty wooden door opened, and an elf, a dwarf and a princess entered an empty tavern in a small village on the bottom of a mountain.
- “Three cups of the best ale!” was the first thing the dwarf said
These three adventurers were treasure hunters, and their ale supplies were exhausted long ago. The princess ran away from her kingdom. She needed money to start a new life. The dwarf was just a normal greedy dwarf, who loved nothing else but gold, weapons and ale. The elf was in his early hundreds. As many young elves those days, he thought that gold was the solution to all the problems. The elf was intelligent, but he had not yet got the wisdom that only comes with age.
After resting for a few days and refilling their supplies in the village, the adventurers finally set of for a quest to defeat the dragon, who lived in the mountains surrounding the village for the past few thousand years. Many warriors had tried to defeat him, but not a single one had ever come back.
After a few days of walking, the group of adventurers the entrance to a cave high in the Black Mountains of Death. The sky was covered with crimson clouds, and the air was filled with odor of rotting flesh. An elven spine crumbled under the massive feet of a dwarf making an ugly cracking sound.
- “What if the Dragon is too strong for us?,” asked the princess with a trembling voice.
- “Then you will die miserably in pain...” mumbled the dwarf.
- “I do not think I want to go inside anymore,” answered the princess in a confused voice.
- “OK, you can stay here. Anyway you are not helpful at all. That just leaves more gold for us,” said the elf.
Elf barely evaded a magic arrow, casted into his direction by the angry princess, and the group of adventurers: princess the sorceress, dwarf the fighter and elf the archer continued to descend to the lair. The smell of sulfur grew stronger and stronger with every level of the lair. Finally, the adventurers reached the source of the smell.
Blinded by the glowing of an enormous pile of golden coins, they at first did not recognize a gorgeous, majestic creature with red scales, yellow eyelids and wide scarlet wings napping on top of the pile.
After a brief discussion on the way of killing the dragon the adventurers started the battle. The princess cast An Ultimate Frozen Ball with spikes, the dwarf hit the dragon with a magic mithril battle axe, the elf shot a flame arrow right in the middle of Dragon's left eyelid. The arrow bounced off the eyelid, the frozen ball melted and the mithril axe cracked. The dragon woke up, yawned and coughed. Dragon's cough is deadly for normal people, but luckily princess succeeded to cast Magic Shield spell in time, so nobody was hurt.
- “Why did you come? I am not hungry”
- “Oh, no reason, really... We are going away right now!”
- “Oh, what a pity. Thanks for cleaning my scales with that frozen ball of yours. Hey, maybe before you leave you want to visit my treasure rooms?”
The adventurers were stunned.
- “Huh?” said the dwarf after a few seconds of silence
- “Not many people visit my lair lately. I am one of the last dragons left. I have three treasure rooms. I suggest a game: We visit all three rooms. The first one has many of the most valuable treasures in the world. The treasures in the second room are also priceless, but they are of a different kind. And in the third room there is only one treasure, but I am not telling you what it is before we go to that room. You can take any treasure you want from any room, but if you do so, you won't be able to go further. Do you want to play? If you don't, it is OK, I'll just eat you...”
didn't take too long for the adventurers to make a choice. The dragon opened the door, and after a while
the elf, the princess and the dwarf ended up in a large round hall with golden walls. Along the walls there were
enormous stalls filled with rings, pendants, crowns and diadems. Some of them seemed to be glowing, which
indicated their magical origin. While the dwarf and the elf were not really impressed, the princess stood in silence
at one of the stalls. She was staring at the golden diadem which was magically glowing with blue light.
- “Is this possible, that it is...” asked the princess with a trembling voice.
- “No, just a copy. But a good one! Has all the magical properties of the original!”
The princess didn't hesitate.
- “I want it!”
- “You can have it. Anyway, you probably don't need anything from the next room...”, said the Dragon in a kind of indifferent tone.
The dragon gave the diadem to the princess and gave her directions to the exit. After the princess had gone far away, the dwarf broke the silence.
- “Are you going to take anything from this room?” he asked in a hesitated voice
- “The treasures in this room all worth a lot of gold, but now that I think of it, there is one thing more important than gold - the ability to get gold from anyone whenever you want”
- “Oh, I think I know what you're talking about” said the dwarf, looking sadly at his cracked mithril axe.
After descending down what appeared to be a duffer, passing the bridge across a lava river, and walking down one of these passages you usually see deep in the dwarves' caves the elf and the dwarf finally stopped. In
front of them was a portal, behind which the elf could only see darkness.
- “This exceeds all my expectations, but it turns out that we were right about what was in this room after all,” said the dwarf, staggered by whatever only he could see with his dwarven eyes.
- “Indeed. Now proceed to my armory.”
The adventurers walked into a huge armory. The stalls were full of exotic weapons of all the ages. Legendary elven bows, hammers and axes crafted by the most skilled dwarven smiths of the First and Second Ages, magic staves with runes so old, that now they can barely be understood even by the members of the Highest White Council.
The dwarf and the elf kept walking down the armory, stopping from time to time to take a look at some exotic swords and weapons they did not know the name for. However, in the end they found something that made the stop in silence for a while. The Axe of Ghimli and the Bow of Elendin were lying next to each other on a table
at the end of the armory. And they weren't merely the copies. Nobody will ever know how the Dragon got them, but they were real, at least as much the dwarf and the elf could tell.
- “I'm taking the Axe”, said the dwarf
- “The treasure in the next room is more valuable than any weapon”
- “There is nothing more valuable than power, ” firmly replied the dwarf with a confident voice
- “Do as you wish. And what about you, Elf?”
- “I will go further”
The dwarf was surprised at the foolishness of his friend. He knew for sure that nothing could make the elf as powerful as the Bow of Elendin. And there was nothing more valuable in the world than power. But the Dragon is old and wise, the chance he made a mistake, making this room not the last one, is very low. Only if he had as much knowledge as the Dragon had, he could be sure about the rightness of his decision. The knowledge... Sandstone!3 But it was too late...
The elf and the Dragon were already far away. After walking for a while, they finally arrived at the entrance to the last treasures room. It was an old undecorated approximately five hobbits height wooden door with a few burns and cuts on it. When the Dragon was about to open the door...
- “Listen, elf. The princess chose a treasure she can sell for a lot of gold and get rich at once. The dwarf chose a powerful weapon. With this weapon he can defeat almost any enemy. The treasures in the room will not make you stronger or richer at once. You can still turn back.”
- “No, Dragon. Only if I knew what is in that room I could be sure about my decision”, now the Elf was almost sure that a key to knowledge was in the room
When they entered the room, the elf smiled. He was right, it was the library.
“Not every stone is a gem, not every rock holds value,
but even the lowest rock can hide a geode.”
a Dwarven proverb4
The End
Comments:
1) The quote actually belongs to Kuzko
2) Proverb origin is unknown, but it is not mine.
3) “Sandstone!” is a dwarven swear word. According to dwarves, it is the worst type of stone. For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandstone.
4) The source of this proverb is unknown (again, it is not mine).