Keto looked up from the bubbling pot.  Smiling again at the wide view before her.  The sun was setting behind the Hendark Mountains now.  While the encroaching dark had taken the sight of the far of towers of Verken, she could still see the silhouette of Migin and eastern fields were arrayed in brilliant crimson.  After a day of writing and playing even Keto’s fingers hurt but there was no doubt to her that the day had been worth it.  As she worked, the Landian had disappeared back down the lone hill.  A few hours had now passed, enough that she had decided she should get a start on their dinner and for a thought to creep in that perhaps something had happened to him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered to herself, giving the pot a stir, “that’s not how his story will end.”  However, she did have another reason she was eagerly awaiting for the Landian to return.  The cities of Migin and Verken she had noted earlier in the day but a sight to the northwest had later caught her attention.

It was a dark speck near the horizon and whereas the two cities had filled her with excitement, if Keto guessed correctly at the dark spot it was a place to fear.  While the Four Heroes, and Migin in particular, had done much to ride the Provinces of Dragons and their kin, most notable the Dragons of the Sanctuary Lake and the mountain that held Migin’s name, one had survived past the lifespan of the Heroes.  The Dragon of Kol Tailen was said to reside now in the crumbling ruins at the center of the dark speck.  The creature was said to at times venture out from the ruins, bringing fiery destruction within its area and Keto guessed explaining the darkness around the ruins.

Not that she had heard in her lifetime of the Dragon being seen.  It was on that point that she was waiting for the Landian to come back.  As if her thoughts had summoned him, Keto heard the scuff of boots and then Quartes crested the hilltop.  His arms were full of wood for the fire, slung over his shoulder were a pair of birds, and there were some sort of plants sticking out of his pouch.

Keto belatedly stood up as the Landian dropped the firewood.  She crouched down to begin stacking it and the Landian moved closer to the fire.  From his pack he pulled a waxed cloth and laid out the rest of his haul.  She noted that he took a moment to look into the pot, his face frowning in frustration.

“Figured you might enjoy an edible meal.”

Quartes looked up, “I apologize,” he started, replacing the lid, “I wanted to have a look around.  Our talk yesterday had made me wonder what ruins were left from the past towns here.  I figured after that it best if not return empty handed.”  The Landian settled down by the fire, and began to pluck the birds he had caught.  Keto joined him, pulling the lid from the put and stirring the stew within.  Quartes was frowning at one of the birds now.  “Dragon blight has started on this one,” he said, turning the carcass to show a spot along its neck where feathers had turned to a series of long scales.

“Is it ruined?”

Quartes turned the bird over in his hands, “We can cut it out, the rest seems unaffected.”

Keto banged the spoon and replaced the pot’s lid, thinking over her next question.  “The blight is from a Dragon being near here, right?”

“The signs are greater the closer you get to the ruins of Kol Tailen,” Quartes answered, plucking the unaffected bird now.

“Why haven’t you dealt with the Dragon?”  Keto gave the Landian a moment to answer before she looked to him.  He was staring into the fire, shaking himself after a moment and pulling at the last few feathers.  “It is kind of your thing,” she added helpfully.

Quartes nodded slowly.  “I suppose that isn’t wrong.”  He opened his mouth to speak, frowned for a moment, and then continued.  “Do you know what Kol Tailen was?”

“Another mountain city, like Migin but smaller?”

Quartes shook his head, pulling his knife from his belt and beginning to dress the birds.  “It was an island, flying through the sky.”

Keto’s eyebrows raised, “Surely you’re jesting here.”

Again the Landian shook his head.  “In the morning look to the Hendarks, some of the mountains are flat at their peaks.  The Line of Falden learned to sever and lift them into the sky.  Made homes and fortresses of them.  In my Cycle, I had last seen Kol Tailen flying above the Pass of Kariou.  We left it there to hold the pass as we prepared for the final battle in the Carotark Desert.  What happened to bring it here and tear it from the sky…,” Quartes shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Seems a feat worthy of a Dragon,” Keto offered and the Landian inclined his head.  “How many such sky islands existed?”

“Do you want that answer or one to your first question?”  Keto gestured for him to continue, Quartes picking up the blighted bird and cutting away its neck.  “I have slain or helped to slay three Great Dragons in this part of Illithiust in this Cycle.  One of those I was enough for.  The other two were with the help of the Four Heroes.  Kol Tailen is the last true Dragon in these parts.  It is a beast held up in a fortress of old.  The last Great Dragon slain, that of the mountain of Migin, required all the armies of the Four Heroes to defeat.”

Quartes finished with the bird and Keto stirred the stew once more.  “You’re saying that you can’t defeat the Dragon on your own because,” Keto thought for a better word but had to settled after a moment, “the story demands it?”

Quartes had cleaned his knife and hands as Keto spoke and nodded now.  “A fortress cannot be taken by one man.”

“So, when do you gather an army?”

The Landian sagged at that.  He stared down at his scarred hand, ran a thumb over an old wound on his forearm.  “I…in my Cycle there were other Landians.  They organized and trained,” he looked to Keto now, exhaling his frustration.  “I fought, I showed what was possible.  Finding what  Verken and the others had started was fortuitous.  Sustaining it was not something I knew how to do.”

Quartes took the pot lid and settled about using it to cook the meat of the birds.  Keto took the herbs he had found, tore them into pieces, and added them to the stew.  Her mind was working.  It struck her as ludicrous that such a battle was prescribed, but then again the story of it made sense.  To fix that would mean finding others to assist Quartes as his fellow Landians had.  That struck her as something that could be done.  The Provinces were lands of adventurers looking to become heroes.

A final thought occurred to Keto.  “What Dragon did you slay on your own?”

“The Dragon of the Hendarks,” Quartes answered as he scrapped at the rapidly burning fowl.

Keto instinctively looked to the sun backed mountains.  “That had to a battle like no other, why haven’t I heard of it.”

“Cause I fought it in the heart of the mountains where no one else saw it.”