Allerion Stormrider- fluff

[Allerion]

Hello! For those of you (probably most of you) who don't know me, I'm Allerion. I was most active on this site from 2008-2010, but have hung around OT ever since. A few years back there was a Scriveners contest which I began half-heartedly writing fluff for Allerion for, but never really got around to finishing it or making it decent. (when was the last one?) With the 8th edition army book being released, I kinda got a hankering to do some painting, but with none of my WFB stuff in the same state as me, I decided to start actually getting all of the stuff about Allerion out of my head and down onto paper. Enjoy! (or not, lemme know)




Introduction

“And now, for the last, but most exciting part of our tour. We are about to go where the dragons sleep! Dragons your parents tell you about when you go to bed, dragons who have outlived every asur on Ulthuan!” the tour guide exclaimed. He was a middle-aged elf, not terribly old, but had seen a few centuries pass. Being one of the newer caretakers of the dragons, naturally it fell upon him to give some of the few tours, as the older caretaker's time was much more valuable. Tours were typically reserved for the privileged; those who might someday ride a dragon themselves, if the dragon wakes. But today the tour guide was assigned to give a tour to a class of “commoners”- all with wealthy parents in their own right, but merchants nonetheless. He didn't quite understand why he was told to give middle class elves a privilege normally reserved for nobility. Maybe one of them had good connections. Maybe one of their parents donated a lot of money. Feeding dragons isn't exactly cheap, and the sanctuary had to be very careful in it's budgeting.

Nevertheless, the day had gone by quickly, and the dozen or so young elves had been a cheerful respite to the normal gloom which hangs over the sanctuary. They started off by visiting some of the younger dragons, who were mere centuries old. The children were awed at the brilliance of these dragons, who's scales shimmered brightly even though they slept. The group made their way deeper and deeper into the cavern, where the older dragons slept. The older dragons were much different than the younger dragons; where the younger dragons shimmered, the older dragons produced a dull gleen, but were more impressive in the fact that they were massive creatures, unlike anything these young elves had seen before, dwarfing the younger dragons. The group wandered somewhat aimlessly throughout the caverns, until the tour guide straightened up and said “Come now, let us go to the resting place of one of the oldest dragons here, Emlir. Though not one of the heroic dragons your ancestors have told you about, she is still quite popular among us caretakers due to the fact that she has given birth to several quite famous dragons. If we are lucky she will stretch her wings, which she has done quite frequently in the last decade!”

The group meandered deeper into the cavern, now with a purpose. The air was very old and musty. The only thing that guided the group were the occasionally placed lantern. After several minutes of walking, the group arrived. Emlir was enormous, and her golden scales glittered in the fairly well lit section, clearly intended for tours, of the cavern. Emlir was an impressive beast, and all of the young elves were clearly speechless by the sight of her. “Though Emlir has never fought in battle, she has given birth to some of the most impressive broods. Her first brood ever to hatch contained Indraugnir, the mightiest of dragons ever to live, as I'm sure you know. Also, in one of her-” The tour guide stopped as his and all of the children's ears were deafened by the roar of a dragon. The tour guide immediately whipped around to look at Emlir, who continued her slumber, even though the cavern shook around her. “Children we must leave at once, we are all in great danger.” The guide whispered with a trace of terror in his voice. He had never seen an awake dragon. The closest he had come was during his time in the citizen levy, when the Durchii had brought a hydra to the shores of Ulthuan. The guide shivered as he remembered clearly as a bolt from an Eagle Claw hit the hydra in the chest as it reared, and neatly tore it's middle neck off. The beast's other heads killed it's handlers than ran rampant through the Durchii, ending the attack before it started.

The guide was brought back to reality by one of the young elves, who asked “Where's Idarik?” “What? I specifically told every one of you to NOT wander off, what happened to him?” hissed the guide, who was realizing that the curious young elf who he had thought seemed a little odd was no longer in the group. “He said he was going to walk a little farther down, but he said he would be right back....” said one of the younger female elves meekly. The guide let out a sigh of exasperation, and said, “All of you, for the love of Vaul, stay here, and do NOT leave this spot for any reason at all. These caverns are very easy to get lost in, even for the most experienced caretaker.” The guided waited until each elf seemed to agree, grabbed a lantern from the wall, and began to trek deeper into the caverns.

He had never been past Emlir's dwelling, but if the young elf who was missing died, it would look very badly upon him. As the guide made his way farther down into the caverns, he reached a point where he could barely breath. The caverns here were not lit, and the lantern barely had enough oxygen to remain burning. The guide stumbled over the floor, which had not been smoothed like the sections of the cavern he frequented. The guide began to wonder if he was going in the wrong direction when another, this time much closer and therefor much more defening, roar reached his ears. He could tell the dragon was old; the roar was almost out of the frequencies the elf could hear. This meant the dragon was truly massive, for it's vocal cords to be so long. In fact, he didn't so much as hear the roar as he felt it; the stone around him shook and then vibrated for a few seconds. The guide could tell he was close, and the young elf should be nearby, if still alive. He felt a wave of heat, accompanied by a rumble he didn't understand, so he could only assume it was from the waking of a massive beast.

Two minutes later, the guide finally found the elf in question. He came up behind Idarik, grabbed his shoulder, and hissed “We must go now unless you want to die.” Idarik shrugged him off, and continued to look ahead. The guide looked in the same direction, and was confused. It was too dark to see anything, so the guide paused for a second and asked “What are you looking at?” Idarik didn't have to answer, as the dragon, who was tens of feet in front of the pair, let out a small blast of fire; this fire momentarily lit the moss growing on the stone around the dragon, and allowed the guide to see an awake dragon for the first time. The dragon startled the guide, because it's outward appearance was unlike that of the other dragons he had seen. Where as the other dragons were colorful and vibrant, this dragon was dark. For a brief moment the guide thought it was a black dragon, though how the Durchii could get it there without anyone noticing is beyond explanation. Then the guide noticed a shimmer of purple, not a bright purple that was expected on dragons, but a dark, translucent, nearly-black purple, a shade that is almost indistinguishable from black in the wrong light. Then the guide looked into the dragon's eyes. The eyes were a deep red, darker than any ruby he had seen, and they glowed, displaying the fire in the dragon's soul. The guide stood astounded as the small fires on the walls of the cavern burned out, returning the cavern to darkness. The dragon let out a final deafening roar, and lumbered over the pair of motionless elves as it began to leave the cavern.

“Why is he drawing this out so much?” thought the tour guide, fully expecting to be “asked” to leave. Several days after the incident, the guide found himself in the office of the head caretaker- the elf responsible for all of the dragons at the Great Hall while they slept. As the head caretaker looked out the window as he spoke to the junior caretaker, the junior caretaker looked about the office. Seemingly ageless tomes about dragons filled the office, with the occasional dragon tooth or nail laying about. The junior caretaker couldn't quite make himself interested enough in the elder elf's speech about responsibility to actually listen, so he found himself, like he had ever since the dragon awoke, thinking about the glowing red eye, sizing him up, dressing him down, evaluating him. The elder elf turned, getting the junior elf's attention. “Now, the boy is currently being evaluated, in attempt to discover what allowed him to wake a dragon that has been asleep for thousands of years. The dragon itself has caused a great commotion, eating livestock and, well, being a dragon out and about. We thought it was just going to fly around for a bit then go back to sleep. But it flew past Lothern yesterday, and as you can imagine that caused quite a stir, especially since it can easily be confused with one of the abominations of the Druchii. It seems to be headed toward the open water, as if it is going somewhere. We don't really know where it's going, but it should return to us eventually. Before you return to your duties, do you have any questions?” The junior caretaker thought for a moment, almost too astounded he wasn't banned from the province to ask anything, but a few questions did come to his mind: “Sir, what is the dragon's name? How old is he? How many other dragons like him are in the caverns? And do we know who rode him?” The elder elf sat down at his desk, and looked at the ancient tome open on it. “Well, we don't know a whole lot about that dragon. My predecessor made a note about a black dragon deep in the caverns, but he could have mistaken color due to the lack of light, and the feintness of color. Though I can't imagine why he would not take more notes about one of the oldest dragons in the caverns. Possibly the oldest, I would estimate he was born around the time of Anerion, though he could be older. We don't know the name of the creature, at least, none of my records mention anything about a dark-purple dragon. Now, if we estimate that it fought in the First Chaos Incursion, and we assume that it was a more normal shade of purple at the time, we greatly narrow the possibilities as to what dragon it could be. Great information about what dragon was in what battle was kept then, mainly because it was the dragons that gave us Asur hope. As far as purple-hued dragons from that time period go, we know for certain that most of them are dead; there are some that could potentially be alive, but given the information about the prince, it is unlikely the dragon would be in Ulthuan. You see, for some strange reason, most princes who had purple-hued dragons wound up betraying our people at the beginning of the Sundering. We can assume those princes took their dragons with them, or killed their dragons when the Lord of Murder overtook their soul. If we discard every prince who betrayed Ulthuan in the Sundering, that leaves us with three possibilities. The first one, Kanis Tyrnith and his dragon were slain while defending the vortex on the Isle of the Dead. The second possiblity, Zazair Maernzea, went insane and disappeared with his dragon into the wastes of Chaos. When Teclis foolishly taught man how to use magic after the Great War, he studied their archives and discovered that an elfish-looking chaos spawn, riding a dragon, led an army into Kislev at one point, but the chaos army was crushed and burned, including the general. So that leaves our third option, whose dragon is almost as unlikely to be alive as the previous two. During the First Chaos Incursion, he was flying with other dragon princes through a storm, in all likelihood created by the Chaos sorcerers, when he was hit by lightning, and began to free fall through the clouds below.” “And what was his name?” asked the junior elf, with an inquisitive look on his face. The elder elf riffled through another tome on his desk for a few minutes before coming across it. “They called him 'Allerion Stormrider.'”

[Ilifirinel]

Cool, will we be seeing more of Allerion Stormrider? Is his dragon going off to find him or is the young elf who woke the dragon going to be its new rider?

Weird coincidence, the story i just posted has a high elf black dragon in it too...

[Allerion]

Hopefully, I'm one of those people that starts projects but might only revisit them every few years or so. This was just an introduction, so I should clear everything up in the next several installments