A Study on the Ice Dragon
Recently I joined a group of adventurers who travelled north. They sought to slay the now-awakened Ice Dragon and hang her head upon their clan's gates for all to behold. Sorely would they be disappointed…
I shall not make an account of the journey itself or talk in any length about the battle. Suffice to say that the adventurers were not fully prepared for the awesome power of this frosty queen of beasts. When not striking the vessel from above with her icy breath she would command the very seas to rise and swallow us. Many warriors lost their lives that day. ‘Twas pure luck and, I suspect, the severely weakened state of our draconian foe, that won the day in the end. Yet the biggest surprise was yet to come...
As we approached the behemoth's body washed up on the icy shores, the surviving crew members feeling grim and tense, we noticed that she seemed to be… dissolving. By the time we ran up the frozen beach to the great beast, her flesh was all but gone. Within her crystalline ribcage, I spied a score of glittering organs! Even as we watched the rest of her slowly melted into frosty pools around our feet.
The captain of the small group began to rage and curse, finally aware that there would be no prize to hang above the clan's gates. As he ranted and raved in impotent fury, I observed a strange and rather worrying phenomenon. The pools of Icy Ex-dragon that were slowly freezing our feet were starting to slowly flow away from us... uphill! I pointed the fact out to the captain and the remaining members of the expedition, and we soon agreed a hasty trip back to our ship would be a grand idea.
As the crew made the sails ready for an expeditious retreat I rested upon the deck and observed the shoreline. The liquefied remnants of the dragon had now pooled at the top of a small hill. A mist was beginning to form around the area and what looked like small forks of blue lightning were striking the ground around the hill. It is hard to be sure, as my vantage point was rather far away, but I think I spied, amidst the bizarre weather effects, a large blue sphere or possibly an egg of rather large and frosty proportions...
Could this grand beast retain some form of immortal life in a sort of reverse ritual of the mythical Phoenix? An unearthly bellow from beyond the mists some hours later as our craft sped away confirmed the answer as.. probably.
Myths say that a group of adventurers known as the Sworn tracked and hunted the Ice Dragon to her lair many centuries ago. While the leader of this band is unknown, it is generally agreed that a fierce warrior by the name of Ixora battled the creature while her companions supported her with arcane aid. It is also generally accepted in all the versions of the story that this Ixora was an undead being. This is probably just a euphemism as sentient and free-willed undead are quite rare indeed, especially in times past. However, I digress. The part of the myth that is of interest to me is that in the final moments of the battle, Ixora apparently brought a glacier down around herself and the dragon as they battled.
This battle, if not the work of pure fiction, would be the last time any record of the Ice Dragon was made. Yet a creature of ice, and indeed of such immense power, to be brought down by itself being buried in ice, is not a concept that should make any sense. Unless...
Perhaps the ice did not, in fact, harm the creature but instead induce some positive state in which the great being was rendered incapacitated. It is no great leap of logic to assume that the beast was fairly injured at the point of burial. Since I have observed the creature being made up of organs perpetually in a state of freezing, I can deduce that being encased in an icy tomb would only be beneficial for her.
Thus perhaps, if we were to accept for the purpose of the hypothesis that the fabled battle has the seeds of truth in it and that indeed the battle between this Ixora and the Ice Dragon was fierce, then perhaps the creature has spent these past eons in a state of a healing rest within the glaciers of Niflheim. One can also assume, therefore, that she is now incredibly hungry and more than a little irate...
Arturo Vandelay
We are the architects of our own serenity now.