Legends of Dragons, the Book: Legends of Dragons, #1

By A.J. Bruner

Legends are often sustained for eons. Passed along through spoken word or an epic writing. In a world of dragons, elves, and humans, where racial tensions often spark confrontation, a threat to the continuing existence of all life has risen once again. An epoch that will thrust in momentous change stands facing an unlikely union of adventurers. Can old hatreds be buried and forgiven in the face of such an adversary or will they stand as an impassable wall? Either way, the end will come at a great cost.

Join characters: Callimina, Mullinath, Talloric, and more, as they each travel a path that leads to the same destination; Signorthralin's mountain fortress. There the characters face off heroes against villains, good versus evil in an epic battle for the future of the world. Elves, humans and dragons band together, but are picked apart by old blood feuds and petty family squabbles. Can the sacrifice of the few, save the many?

Only a new legend can help to heal the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.J. Bruner
• Release date: Oct 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798554737633

A.J. Bruner

A.J. grew up in a small town in Indiana. His paternal grandparents lived just south of Detroit and he would spend time there now and again. On the opposite side of the curve, his maternal grandparents lived in "small town, USA". He would often use his imagination to occupy his time. During Junior High he discovered the writings of Margret Weis, Laura and Tracy Hickman and Stephen King. Weis and the Hickmans would paint outlandish fantasy tales about dragons, wizards and elves and on the other side Stephen King would take him to a dark place where things went bump in the night. It wasn't long after this that he began to write his own short stories. It wasn't until he sat down and focused on one topic that he was able to bring readers the first book in the Soul Mates series; Perceptions Of Love. More works have since followed, including Legends of Dragons, which is A.J.'s first trip into fantasy writing of a different kind.

Book preview

Legends of Dragons, the Book (front cover image)

Legends of Dragons,

the Book

A. J. Bruner

Amazon KDP

Copyright © 2020 A. J. Bruner

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

ISBN: 9798554737633

AMAZON SECOND EDITION, LICENSE NOTES

THANK YOU FOR PURCHASING THIS BOOK.

THIS BOOK REMAINS THE COPYRIGHTED PROPERTY OF THE AUTHOR, AND MAY NOT BE REDISTRIBUTED TO OTHERS FOR COMMERCIAL OR NON-COMMERCIAL PURPOSES.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK, PLEASE ENCOURAGE YOUR FRIENDS TO PURCHASE THEIR OWN COPY FROM THEIR FAVORITE AUTHORIZED RETAILER.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, BUSINESSES, PLACES, EVENTS, LOCALES, AND INCIDENTS ARE EITHER THE PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR USED IN A FICTITIOUS MANNER. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, OR ACTUAL EVENTS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

Dedication

For my son,

and his love of rainbows.

This is your legacy, buddy.

- Love Dad

Introduction

What Is This All About?

Hello Dear Reader,

I wanted to give you some background on this book and how it came into being. This is the jumping off point for the Legends Of Dragons™ series. With this book serving as the doorway into the world Legends Of Dragons inhabits. So with that in mind…

This was one of those stories that just started to flow out of my head, bit by bit. This was my first step into a fantasy world, like the ones I had read about and enjoyed role-playing in with friends. As I was writing, the idea for a card game to accompany the book came into being. Over the next year, I hopped back and forth from book to game, even creating several digital versions of the card game to share online through Steam on Tabletop Simulator.

With this book being my first attempt at fantasy fiction involving dragons, I had to do some research. So I went back to the books that inspired my love of dragons and that was when I stumbled upon the central element for my dragons; color. The Dragonlance™ series presented dragons as two factions: Metallics and Chromatics, also representing good and evil respectfully.

I advanced this idea further by giving each color a distinctive personality and moral compass, even detailing how each flight was created. However, as the story progressed it became clear that one extra flight was needed; the Prismatic.

Prismatic dragons are a derivative of my Ultima Dragons Internet Club name (UDIC.org); AJ the Prismatic dragon. Ultima Dragons formed back in 1992, based on the common interest of the Ultima™ series created by our fellow dragon, Splut, a.k.a. Richard Garriott (yes, that one).

I took on my moniker as a member, or dragon, of the UDIC in reference to the not-for-profit my son and I create art through: #ColoringTherapy. That is where we use various art forms to support his autism and inspire others. Since we use color in all of our art and prisms contain all colors, it all came together.

Once I had completed the third version of the card game online, I switched back to end the book. After that I began hunting down artists that created the types of dragons I was visualizing. I eventually found several and have included some of their works within these pages (see the section on Contributors).

Thank you fellow dragons for all your support!

Welcome to the world of Legends Of Dragons…

- A.J. Bruner

Pinellas Park, 2020

Table Of Contents

Dedication

For My Son

Introduction

What Is This All About?

Chapter 1

A Guided Tour

Chapter 2

A Brief Moment Of History

Chapter 3

The Way Of The Wing

Chapter 4

If Not For A Small Few…

Chapter 5

Into the Great Blue

Chapter 6

The Road To Ruinosa

Chapter 7

Death, Comes From Everywhere

Table Of Contents cont'd

Chapter 8

All Is Not As It Seems

Chapter 9

Looking For An Ally

Chapter 10

New Friends, Old Enemies

Chapter 11

Favorable Conditions, Unfavorable Odds

Chapter 12

Like Them, Like Us

Chapter 13

Stand And Be Unaccounted

Chapter 14

The Inside Is What Counts

Chapter 15

Settled And Unsettled

Chapter 16

Fly And Be Free

Chapter 17

What Is Done Is Not Easily Un-done

Chapter 18

Friends, Enemies, And Death

Table Of Contents cont'd

Chapter 19

The Road Taken

Chapter 20

Gathering Of Forces

Chapter 21

Meeting Of The Minds

Chapter 22

The Great Plan

Chapter 23

Overlord, Overseeing

Chapter 24

Something Wicked Now Rises

Chapter 25

Death Comes On Leathery Wings

Chapter 26

Dawn Breaks, As Do Hearts

Chapter 27

Bad Tidings, Bad Reception

Chapter 28

Of Dragons And Men And Elves

Chapter 29

Dragonfire, Twisted Ire

Table Of Contents cont'd

Chapter 30

The End Is Nigh

Chapter 31

Close, Closer, Closest

Chapter 32

The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 33

Round And Round We Go Again

Chapter 34

Into The Darkness

Chapter 35

And So Night Falls

Chapter 36

The End Of Most Things

Chapter 37

As It Was, So It Is

Chapter 38

With Peace, Comes A Price

Connect with A.J. Bruner

Other Ways To Find Me

Contributors

Artists

More Books

Other Books Written By A.J. Bruner

The Card Game

Legends Of Dragons, the Card Game

1

A Guided Tour

Time has come and gone for more than five ages now. Many wondrous events and creations have passed in these cobweb-riddled and tattered remnants of life. Having witnessed several of these firsthand, either from a safe height, but sometimes a bit too close for comfort, there was much to gain knowledge of. Carrying away lessons learned and applying them as new data onto current and future engagements. It is in the midst of this information that you now find yourself, but not as books, like one might think. Instead this knowledge exists at the tip of a pencil; a colored pencil, to be exact and around you sit millions.

Surrounding you, and lining the walls, are shelves where volumes of written text were once housed. The vast library of papers bound in leather, has now been replaced by a fabulous array of colored pencils, in a myriad of color beyond any rainbow ever visible in the open sky. It is with each pencil that a story is told. Brought to life as the user’s hand glides the pencil tip across the page, but not to curl and twist to form letters, rather as a single color to compliment and contrast with others to create a visual result meant to effect emotion.

It is towards the center of the room that your eyes are now drawn and like the splendid colorful assault from the pencils before, this giant wooden mass does not disappoint.

If not for the presence of your companion as proof of such possibilities, you would have surely believed it to be an illusion. True magic, however, is not…an illusion.

In order to understand this gift, one must go back to the birth, of dragons. Your companion steps out into the luminous aura that is penetrating the ceiling from above.

Yes, dragons, but I will explain all that in due time. As to the history that you do not know, I shall endeavor to fill in the blank spots.

Ancient Elven magicks bore dragons into existence and gifted unto them some of that power. It was because of that power, and how hard dragonscales were when forged into armor, that dragons were hunted almost into extinction. Eventually, those that remained forged a pact with a small, but influential group comprised of elves and humans. The sole purpose was the secrecy of the Draconia family and the remaining dragonkin. Many sought refuge in far away mountains, or deep within the bowels of the Earth. Some still spend more time in the air than on the ground. The elves channeled primordial elements into wing armor that acted as a mask to the human eye.

Radar was a problem when it was first introduced, but only until dragons discovered that they simply had to fly faster, creating ghost blips, which were then ignored. Eyewitness accounts? Laughable, at best: ‘100 meters long, wings twice that size, with monstrous fangs dripping with gore’. Firstly, a dragon that large, could not hide easily, let alone move about the world and not be spotted. Fangs, dripping with gore…right because it is easy to find fallen trees to pick our teeth with.

After the elves and dwarves faded from the world, dragons were the last magic keepers. Left alone to gradually become legend and eventually drifted into myth. Many have watched from afar as humans construct lifelike replicas of what they think dragons are and have heard the tales spoken of old ones slain by some ‘heroic knight’ or bedazzled dragonslayer. As a dragon dies, the magic is taken away with the soul, like a well being drained and the world becomes a little less fantastical.

We now come in various shapes, sizes and colors, and each race has unique traits. No dragon is truly evil, although some are wholeheartedly good and pure. Most dragons are simply self-serving and nothing more. Engaging in the mortal lives isn’t forbidden, but has often met with disastrous results. Those that were discovered were often hunted or tricked into aiding some human cause that resulted in their eventual death.

During the second century, a drunken sorcerer stole primeval spell research and used it to twist draconian eggs. Once the dragon hatches, their mind is forever linked to that egg and those wielding the egg are capable of controlling a dragon’s mind by bending their will.

A great war took place, which divided the dragons and pitted many against their own kin. Much magic was lost during those times, as many dragons were slain. The lines of division remained between the races of dragons and loathing festered in the space between for many.

Dragons are often stereotyped into groups, based upon color. In absolutely defined, but general terms, this profiling is often closer to the truth than most dragons would like to admit, but of course we are not bound by such definitions either. The color of a dragon’s scales is often determined by their lives and their emotions. It is not uncommon for a dragon to change color in their lifetime, maybe even several times, but there is always one scale that remains after each molting. As a dragon molts, most notably as this relates to scale color changes and not simply ‘getting older’, a previous colored scale remains behind, as part of  a row at the base of their tail.

"Human history and legend has attempted to maintain some of the original coloring designations, in spite of this being such an archaic form of identification. In order to effectively understand and explain the connotations behind each classification, it is important to understand that these assignments were given by humans and not by any member of the draconian family, although many have adopted their ‘color assignment’ and accept it.

This is not exactly a good thing or a bad thing, simply in terms of human understanding; it is what it is and for those dragons that continue to do business with humans, it is vitally important to show your ‘true colors’."

Your companion leads you over to a small alcove, tucked away in a corner of the gigantic room. Gesturing towards an illustration depicting dragons of color, your companion continues:

The crude, human definition for this piece would be the ‘treatise of dragons’. Fitting, as this is about the extent of the sum of knowledge most of them have access to. Humans have divided dragons into two main categories: Good (Metallic colored dragons) and Evil (Chromatic colored dragons). In our terms, we consider these factions of thought, rather than a designation of persona. Further division occurs within each faction, but these are more directly related to habitat and not caused by emotional assignment.

Within the Metallic faction, the dominant colors are: Brass, Bronze, Copper, and Gold. The rarest and most spiritually powerful color being Silver, are often looked to as leaders because of their passion, empathy, and justified wisdom, which the other Metallic colors hold in particularly high regard.

Translating this concept as it would apply to humans; a Silver dragon might be like a Ghandi or a Mother Theresa/seer-type, just in a sense of the ‘spiritual’ and also the ‘documented rarity’. The Bronze and Copper dragons prefer to spend the majority of their time inside volcanoes, or as close to an active lava source as possible, as it is horrendously difficult for them to maintain their body temperatures and so desire extreme heat to do the work instead.

On the other hand, the Brass and Gold dragons do not have this issue and are often found at high altitudes in mountainous regions.

Surely, the Chromatic dragons are more common knowledge amongst humans. This faction is often the most talked about, because they are the most self-serving of the draconian family, having the most interaction with humans, and have evolved by doing so. The Black and Green dragons are frequently found closer to human civilizations more than any of the other colors, as they can easily hide in shadows, fields and forests. Having more exposure to humans than the others, they have also adopted more human-like traits, not for the better. Blue and Red dragons desire more solitude and are usually located near large sources of warm water. Similar to the Metallic dragons, the rarest Chromatic is also the lightest in color: white. Perhaps it is to match the cold hearts beating within their chests that they have a strong preference for ice and utter isolation. Being fiercely competitive and vicious, if any remain, it is because they finally agreed upon absolute boundaries for territories, and crossing of these would mean death. White dragons are the complete pinnacle definition of self-preservation.

After the presentation, you follow your companion into an adjoining chamber. As you pass through the doorway, you feel cramped at first, but not because the room is small, it is just a lot small-er than the previous one. While considerably diminutive in size compared to the old library, it is not without its own awe.

This room was the common area within an old traveler’s rest that had stood for centuries. A cataclysmic event occurred and destroyed much of the original construct. This room was salvaged and brought here your companion explains as your eyes adjust to the cozy illumination scattered around the space.

Hanging along the walls are large paintings contained within dark, wooden frames that