Cyndra

Bloodstone Minerals & Ores No one knows quite why, but the ritual of squeezing a bloodstone is often used to relieve stress after long and drawn out arguments. 45 Plaguebringer Bone Scrimshaw Trinkets A menacing engraving of the Plaguebringer. It is scrawled on the side of a large bonespike and reeks of decay. 105 Art by Burgundyday Moonstone Minerals & Ores This radiant gemstone is known for its magical ability to aid in the biological morphing processes of some rare types of sprites and fairies. 45 Sharpened Scythe Trinkets Fashioned from obsidian, the head of this scythe is more than capable of splitting hairs. 47 Eliminate Ability Stone A high damage deadly attack that attempts to finish the opponent off. Refunds breath if the enemy dies. 500 Required Level: 7

The Entrance Beckons ______You enter the lair. The red rocks are warm to the touch and glowing green muck splattered here and there provide less light, instead throwing shadows against the walls of the cave. Deep in the bowels of the den you hear a soft rumble as of some great beast gently breathing in its sleep. Curiously you creep closer, eager to see what creature calls this place home. A dark tail whisks away into the darkness. For a brief moment you glimpse a flicker of shining iron. Then, with a deafening screech, a black and blue mottled dragon with bright red splattered wings pounces out of the darkness. Her claws find your shoulders and you are thrown to the floor with a thud and a jingle produced by her delicate jewelry. She caught you. ______Cyndra. The matriarch of the clan and reknowed for her brutality. When she set out to found her clan, she did so with pure aggression, fiercely carving out her territory and chasing down her rivals. For now she has settled on the edges of the Plaguebringer's territory, regularly patrolling with her clan members for intruders. Their targets rarely escape. ______Personality-wise, Cyndra is rather arrogant and ambitious. Besides her goddess, she views everything and everyone as beneath her. While she takes to living on the edges of the scarred wasteland with gusto, she has no intention of remaining there forever. The world exists to be conquered, in her mind, and she is just the dragon to do it. As such, she is prone to over-reacting in an aggressive and violent manner, often losing her temper and resorting to teeth and claws, leaving behind a trail of shredded, dying trees and shattered boulders in her wake. True to her mirror heritage, she prefers to say little and her clan members have learned to read her moods via her overall body language. ______That's not to say Cyndra cannot be kind. Kindness is merely a rare thing she expresses. Instead she prefers to show her love for her clan members with fierce loyalty. She would protect them with her life. And similarly, she would protect her home, just as passionately... ______You've done it now. This is her home and she is defending her family. You brace yourself for what is most surely the end. But, instead, she lets you up after sniffing you thoroughly. It might be your imagination, but she appears to be....laughing. Silent laughter, but laughter all the same. The verdict is set. You are no more a threat to her than a glowing pocket mouse. You are free to go...

A B O U T Mate: Dazenth Relatives: None Friends: Janette Enemies: Too many to count. Reputation: Highly Negative Align: Chaotic Evil/Neutral Virtue: Loyalty, Determination, Passion Vice: Bloodlust, Arrogance, Ambition F A M I L I A R Dark-Tufted Sparrowmouse Familiar A terror to any dragon who gardens. 1500

Art by FatherTime

It was sitting alone on a high shelf of rock deep in the scarred wasteland. A single dragon egg, green, translucent, and shaking. Where it came from was anyone’s guess. Perhaps it rolled free of its nest, away from its mother, lost to its parents. By chance, it may have been stolen and left to die by the beast clans that roamed the land in herds. And maybe, just maybe, it was placed there purposely by someone who was more friend than foe to dragonkind. But for whatever reason, there it was, quivering with more vigor at every moment.

Suddenly, great cracks appeared on the surface and a young dragon burst out. Slime coated her wings and she struggled to get a handle of her many limbs. Tripping and stumbling about, she let out an earsplitting shriek, saying, plain enough to any adult dragon, “Here I am!”. But her call went unanswered. She was completely alone. Confused, the young dragon began to wander away from the remnants of her egg, searching for someone.

It was three days later and the young dragon was close to death. She lay, sprawled, on the dry arid plains of the abiding boneyard, taking shelter next to a small stone whose shade barely covered half of her body. She had not eaten, having no idea how to hunt or where to find food and water. Gasping, she lay there, her ribs showing through her scaled skin, her body denied the food it needed in this critical time of her development. A hot wind swept over the ground, and the hatchling mirror let out a single shuddering breath, closing her eyes for the last tim-

“What are you doing?” said a small twittering voice. The mirror opened her eyes and found herself gazing at a small bird, a little dark-tufted sparrowmouse. It clicked it’s beak, tilted it’s head, and said again. “Well? What are you doing?”

Something about the bird, the mirror found extremely annoying. She slowly turned her head and bared her teeth slightly as she spoke. “I’m dying what do you think,” she said.

“Why are you dying?” It was perhaps the most ridiculous question the bird could have asked, the dragon thought. The reasons should have been obvious. But the bird didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon so the dragon let out a sigh and answered anyway.

“I have not eaten, I have not drunk, and I have no strength to move.” she said exasperatedly. “Now would you please leave so that I can just die in peace.” But the little bird did not move. Instead it hopped closer, turning its head this way and that as it examined her with bright blue eyes.

“Do you have a name?”

“... I do not.”

“Everyone has a name.”

“Well I do not!”

“... My name is Janette.”

“...”

“I can give you a name if you wish.”

A name! In all her short life, the young mirror had not considered a name for herself. She glanced at the bird, Janette. “A name?”

“Yep! Your name can be…” Here Janette paused, thinking. Her eyes shown a brilliant cyan blue, ethereal-looking by the light of the full moon. “Your name shall be Cyndra.”

“Cyndra…” the young mirror said softly. She let her cracked lips lift slightly in a smile. “I like it.”

Janette shuddered again gazed down at the newly christened Cyndra. “Now then, why don’t you get up”

Cyndra blinked. “I cannot move!” she said indignantly.

“Sure you can!” the bird answered. “You’re much stronger than you look! Come with me! I’m no dragon, but I can teach you. Teach you what it means to be a survivor. Besides, where else will you go?”

Cyndra said nothing, but thought over what Janette had said. And as darkness fell, all that could be seen in the abiding boneyard was the small figure of a starved, limping, mirror hatchling following a little fluttering bird.



Down below, wandering in the tangled growth of the Wandering Contagion, a young mirror wound her way. A small sparrowmouse fluttered about her head. This was Cyndra, months later, a youthful dragon just at full size though not at full weight. She had the lean hard look of a dragon who had spent her entire life as a vagabond in the Scarred Wasteland. As the sun stayed steady and burning high up in the sky, she came to a halt and surveyed the land before her.

“Where are we going, Janette?” she said irritably to the small bird.

“Away from here.”

“Yes, but where?”

“Just away. There is danger coming.”

At this, Cyndra swelled indigniantly. “Danger! HAH! What have I too fear? In all the traveling we’ve done, nothing has been able to harm me.”

At this, Janette wheeled around and landed on a bit of sickly-looking growth, eyeing Cyndra. “You have not been harmed, true. But there have been many close calls. In all our traveling in the Abiding Boneyard, I have taught you many things. How to hunt, to find water, to fight, to find shelter, and more. But here’s another lesson you must learn. How to avoid danger.”

“Avoid danger!” Cyndra scoffed. “I am a dragon! A mirror! I don’t avoid danger. Dragons do not avoid danger. Mirrors do not avoid danger. I AM the danger!”

Janette fluttered and flew up to land on Cyndra’s nose. “You are a dragon, yes. But what do you know of other dragons. You can fight, but you are no match for them. Not yet.”

Cyndra blinked in confusion. “Is that what we’re running from? Other dragons?” She sneezed, causing Janette to take to the air once more. “I have no fear or other dragons. They’re my own kind! Why should they be a danger to me?”

“You do not understand Cyndra! This land is not-” but Cyndra had already started off in the direction of the other dragons. She was excited. She had never met other dragons before and the thought of finally meeting others of her own kind was intoxicating, so much so, that she even disregarded the warnings of Janette whose advice she had always taken before. She ran ahead, faster than Janette could fly.

Janette was worried. She beat her wings has fast and hard as she could, trying to catch up to Cyndra. Trying to warn her. These past few days, Janette knew Cyndra needed a place of her own. That meant traveling and passing through the territories of other dragons. Most clans were peaceful and knew travelers when they sented them, leaving Cyndra and Janette to go on without incident. This clan, though, was very different. They would not take kindly to trespassers.

Janette was not able to catch up.

Cyndra turned and abruptly, there they were. Ecstatically, she rushed forward to meet them and introduce herself. They fell upon her.

There was chaos, as Cyndra disappeared beneath a mass of writhing dragons.

What happened next surprised everyone, Janette especially.

Cyndra rose up out of the pile half in fear, half in rage. She struck out with her front claws and the dragon before her slumped down and stopped moving. Startled at this turn of events, the other dragons paused, then turned and ran, likely thinking it better to retreat with the loss of one of their own. Cyndra stayed where she was, her chest heaving, watching them go, a strange look on her face. Suddenly, she lunged forward, racing after the other dragons, pure fury radiating from every inch of her body. Janette settled on a rock and watched as Cyndra caught up to one, horrorstruck.

When it was over, Cyndra returned, limping from a large cut in her back leg.

“Why did you do that?” Janette asked quietly. Cyndra turned and stared at her, the strange look still upon her face.

“Why? They attacked me!”

“You did not need to go after them though. They were leaving.” Cyndra did not answer.

“They died so easily…” She flexed her claws and inspected them. The strange look was never more evident on her face. “All of them together didn’t kill me, but one swipe from me and…”

“I doubt they were trying to kill you, just wound” Janette interjected. Cyndra ignored this completely.

“It was so easy! They were just...pathetic.” Cyndra was growing more excited by the second. “They couldn’t beat me! I beat them! I’m better than them!” This statement rung in the open space.

“Cyndra…” Janette said nervously. “Please just tell me why? You didn’t need to keep going…”

Cyndra turned to look at Janette. Slowly a wide smile spread across her face, until all her teeth showed maliciously. “It was fun.”

Janette stayed where she was as Cyndra began to trot away. It would be a while before she would return to following her, calling out to Cyndra to come with her one last time. To a special place.

She knew what that strange look was now....



In the months to come, Cyndra would show herself to be truly savage. She and Janette continued to travel until they came upon a large rock pointing up and up into the sky like a finger stretching toward the heavens. Natural caves pockmarked the spire from the base to the tip. Cyndra settled at the very tip in one of the caves that faced out over the largest part of her new territory.

Every morning, Cyndra and Janette surveyed her new territory, searching for anyone or anything. Beastclan members, other dragons, it didn’t matter what. Cyndra ruthlessly hunted them down. Most fled before her, running as fast as they could until they passed the edges of her territory, others were not so lucky and were run down. Eventually, dragons and Beastclan members alike avoided Cyndra’s territory home as it was to that “Mad” dragon with the maniacal grin.

So, Cyndra and Janette settled into their new home, alone, just the way she liked it.

(Continued with Dazenth)