Editing Periodic Table of Dragons/Stories (section)

==Unfinished Story==
The last few days have proceeded in a very strange fashion for me. During the course of events that transpired, I admit to having slacked in the keeping of my journal, for the speed with which everything happened left me without chance to sit down and write. Now that I am in the clear, so to speak, I shall record this tale in full.

To set the scene, it was the third day of Mendel, in 1453 of the Common Era. I had been forced by the growing cold of the season to give up on my search for the hermetic Osmium dragon that is rumored to live somewhere in the Tasal Mountains. I had stayed for a length of time approaching a month at a village named Dolsengrad, tucked away in one of the mountain passes that cuts through the narrowest part of the mountain range. Dolsengrad does well for itself, better than most villages at least, because of its location: caravans and travelers heading through the mountains frequently passed through little town, leading it to be a bit less isolated than most places. It was with one such north-bound caravan that I had arrived at Dolsengrad, and it was by another caravan that I planned to leave.

The dwellers of the northern city Frostmere had sent out with a stockpile of goods going to Puos, some 500 kilometers to the southwest of Dolsengrad. Extra hands that can hold a weapon are always welcome on such voyages through the Wilds, so I had little trouble joining the group of wagon-pullers. It is common practice for travelers to gather together for safety, and it was in my own best interest to avoid becoming another of the many dead adventurers who thought they could cross through the Wilds alone. The mutual agreement, then, was that I would stand at front-left as one of the guards. This particular detail is important, for it would turn out to be greatly to my fortune.

We left Dolsengrad behind that day, after the caravan had bought some of the village’s excess harvest to fortify the reserves. We were about 15 heads strong, by my count, driving two wagons’ worth of goods. It wasn’t my business to inventory their stock, but I guessed that a significant portion of it was probably bottled spittle of the Nitrogen dragons, given the great care the caravan leaders were taking to keep the second wagon from shaking about (they had gone so far as to tie padding to the wheels). Political tensions between Puos and nearby Emmese have been increasing since the later laid claim to the recently-discovered gold mines between them, and as Frostmere is a long-standing ally of Puos, I suspect the shipment was to aid in the war everyone suspects will soon break out.

That shipment of bomb-water will never arrive, though. We were making good headway though the mountain pass, with no troubles for the first couple hours. Then, the droning noise of the creaking wagon wheels was interrupted by a deep, howling roar from the direction of the rear-guard. We all turned around just in time to see the man being grabbed and tossed against the wall of the pass! The creature that had grabbed him was a hulking brute, covered in thick white fur and hunched over like a gorilla- a rimeback. “Damn, and damn again!” I remember shouting to myself as I clutched my spear. The beast was as tall as our wagons, and beyond that, it was not alone. Several more rimebacks leapt down from the top of the cliffs, joining into the ambush now that their alpha had struck the first blow. Just my luck that a troop of these frozen apemen would be traveling along the top of the gorge at the same time as we traversed it from below!

Rimebacks, for those not familiar with the cold norths, are a voracious and violent species similar to the gorns of more tropical climates. They are well-distributed across both the frozen mountains and tundras, but it is surprising to see them this far down when the year’s chill was only just now arriving in Tasals. Their most iconic feature, and the source which their name is drawn from, is the sharp, spine-covered layer of ice that they maintain on their backs. The existing documented knowledge of their habits suggests that is for personal defense, as rimebacks are so inclined towards acts of savagery that when lacking for anything else to fight, they often turn on each other. They can survive on whatever hardy vegetation they find, being omnivorous, but will eagerly spring at any chance they can get to tear into a meal of meat- such as a traveling caravan passing through the mountains!

The alpha was already occupied by some of the others, and I was about to run to the man that had been thrown against the stone wall to see if he was still with us, but before I could I was already being accosted by another rimeback. I was too occupied to count their numbers, but the typical rimeback troop is rather small, so we likely outnumbered them... That’s good, because I don’t believe a single one of us wanted to take one of these animals on alone.

I was backed up to the side of the first wagon with another guard with me. I’m thankful that we were armed with spears, because the reach given to the rimeback by it great arms would have been very troublesome if the two of us bore swords. This man was perceptive of the ways of battle, and despite our lack of words, the both of us seemed to be thinking on the same level: one to occupy the monster from the left, the other from the right. It kept us safe, and when the burly creature moved to punch at my fellow, I was able to push the head of my blade into my foe’s exposed side. I wish that our fellows could have been doing as well as us, but as well as I could tell, they weren’t.

I caught, from the corner of my eye, the sight of the frantic horses of the second wagon panicking and the wagon driver trying- failing- to keep them from jumping about. Likewise, four of the other men were busy trying to keep the hungry rimebacks off of the horses, but the alpha among them knocked the foolishly brave man that interposed himself aside before almost casually reaching out to snap the horse’s neck with his massive hands. Shouting men, roaring rimebacks, and crying horses, all of it together was nearly as loud as a dragon, but somehow the caravan leader’s voice was able to carry over it all. There is a certain amount of contempt that quickly develops in the pit of your stomach, I’ve found, at listening to someone shout “Protect the goods!” while his men are being killed. I forgive him now, considering what happened in the following moments, but at the time, I’d have punched him across the jaw if I had any blows to spare.

It was one of those adrenaline-surged times where you take it all in and everything around you seems slow, that moment when you realize it just before things speed back up. My attention was brought back to my own situation when the rimeback I was engaged with, my spear still gouged beneath its arm, reached down and snapped the wooden handle of my weapon. I looked down upon my now useless stick before my eyes darted back up at the rimeback towering over me, pulling his arm back to strike me even as my ally sunk a second blade into its body. I was sure my life was at an end, but the gods must take either great joy in seeing me alive or great humor in seeing me panic.

Have you ever seen what happens when you take an entire wagon’s worth of bomb-water, that raw nitrogen explosive, and then knock it over? I haven’t, but I sure as hell have felt it. It’s not fun. Think of the biggest, muscliest man you can, then make him twice as big and try to imagine what it would feel like for that guy to punch you literally into off your feet, while at the same time the sound of him yelling is so loud that it deafens you. My ears are still ringing now, even! Quite obviously, I survived the explosion, no doubt on account of my distance from the epicenter, but I was knocked unconscious by the sudden force of the blast... Or perhaps it was a stone knocked against my head that did it. In any case, I can’t say with certainty what happened next.

>To be continued later