The Story of Heruli
Part 1 - History
A long time ago. (400 years) On this world lived another type of creature called dragons. I am one, and this is
the story of what happened to the Dragons, but more specifically, my Clan of Dragons.
Everybody knows what a dragon is. And when most people think of dragons, they
tend to think of them as a myth of the 16th and 17th centuries. Well that is half-right. We (Dragons) did exist during those centuries. In
fact we had always existed on this planet. For millions of years dragons and humans coexisted. Not always on good terms, but none the
less we were here. We went about our business and you humans did yours. Occasionally we would kill a human and you would kill one of
us, and life went on. However, we Dragons live longer than humans do. Therefor our population didn't increase very fast. In fact it really
didn't increase much at all. This is because when we find a mate it is for life and we generally have only one or two offspring. Humans on
the other hand, live for about 60-70 years and will have on average 2-3 offspring per mate. Of course this was back then and times have
changed a little. So with you humans breeding faster then us dragons, it was only naturally that you would take up most of the space and
not see us too often. We accepted this and went on our lives. As life went on, the humans grew in population while we dragons just
moved out of the way. Eventually we became stereotyped as monsters, child killers, and basically a threat to the human race. Now of
course this was true for some dragons, even a few in my clan, but like all stereotypes, this was not true for the majority of us. And this is
were the problem started.
Around the medieval times or dark ages, dragons became the most hunted game
by humans. Not that we were never hunted before, it's just that during this time humans started hunting us in greater numbers. Some
humans started specializing in the killing of dragons. This was mostly due in part to the stereotyping of dragons. Another thing that didn't
help us was the fact that we practiced magic. This of course was frowned upon by the christian church, which during this time was
beginning to grow by leaps and bounds. Finally the rumors that certain body parts could cure deadly diseases, and that our blood was a
very strong acid that could melt anything, only furthered the mass killings of dragons everywhere. With our slow reproduction rate, our
numbers quickly went down. Whole tribes of dragons disappeared. Some species of dragons were killed off completely. Bounties we put
out for body parts that were said to have special healing properties. Missing people were now claimed to have been eaten by a dragon.
Claims of dragons destroying towns came in from all over the place. Few of them were actually true. When a town was destroyed by a
dragon, the news of it was rapidly spread out wide that many people heard the same news but thought it was a different town. Thus
exaggerating the real number, and making people afraid that any day at any time we could come and kill them all. So they thought they had
to kill us first. People started to hate us. Some wanted revenge because a dragon was said to have done this, or killed someone that was
missing. Something had to be done about this, and done fast. Or else we dragons risked becoming extinct.
A meeting of dragons was called. Dragon leaders from all over the world were
supposed to attend. To keep this a secret, it was very hastily planned for fear of any humans finding out about it. A date and place had
been chosen, the date I am unsure of but the place was a wide-open field on top a rather high hill. This was so that if the humans did find
out and came, we could see them in time a get away. And they did find out. It was getting near the time for the meeting to start when a
late arrival mentioned that there was increased human activity in the nearby towns. However not much consideration was taken to this
because it was close to a holiday and people were visiting loved ones at this time. A few scouts were sent out just to be safe and the
meeting started without any worry. Suddenly a burst of fire was seen in the distance. A figure seen in the air in that direction suddenly fell to
the forest. The forest seemed to come alive for a minute and then stop. This was a good distance away and it was decided that they
should wait for the scouts to return before any action would be done.
To be Continued
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