Land of Salvania

  Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Ritter stepped outside wearing a fresh tabard, and most of the grime from his days of confinement was scraped off his face and hands. His kidnapper walked beside him. Both were smiling. Wellorg, the massive dragon queen sniffed the air and stiffened. The bandits' twenty dragons surrounded her, bowing and cooing their greetings to the green and black queen. A few of the larger blue dragons were starting to posture and nip each other to showoff their worth as possible mates. If she stayed around any longer, they would start fighting in earnest. "Like I said, she is huge, powerful, and more dangerous than you'll ever know," Ritter said, still smiling. "She will happily slaughter everyone - man and dragon - you see here if this goes sideways." "You're just trying to save your own skin," Morgan, his captor-turned-reluctant-ally, said. "You bet I am," Ritter said. "Just do what I said, ...

It had taken some serious wheedling, but Handol finally agreed to hand over one of the red jewels he had "acquired" from a troll statue . Bradyn opened his spellbook, the writhing letters slowly drifting into place, forming words he could read for just a moment before scattering. "Gem of blood," he said aloud as Handol watched. "Wall of stone. Open now and take us home. Powers high and powers low, heed my words and make it so!" The stones seemed to melt and run like ink, forming a low doorway filled with light and colors. It remined Bradyn of lamp oil spilled onto a pool of water. He closed the stained leather tome and tossed the gem back to his friend. "Let's see what happened," the wizard said as he stepped into the shimmering light. As he looked into the next room, he was astounded at the vivid colors. It was as if he had stepped into a painting. Or perhaps he had found a different reality. /// Copyright