Krisk the Ageless

When the City of Dreams was burned by the Telerian League at the end of the Gaellen War, there were few survivors. Some fled the siege early, escaping with little more than their skins. Others came to defend their home to the last, only to arrive too late. Some survived through sheer luck. Many perished inside the walls, unable to save their ruined dreams. The last surviving member of the Gaellen Warclave, Rhazin Scarhide, supposedly died fighting the supreme commander of the Telerian League, Scyl of the Drakes, but their bodies were never found. Some even today speculate they both escaped the bloodshed, somehow. There was one survivor, though, who watched the city fight, and die, all from the great hill overlooking it. They were a great lump of a Lizardman, sporting a strange shell that almost seemed to be part of him. He barely moved, and barely spoke. When the last ember of the burning city had gone out, and the last invader had withdrawn to their ship, Krisk the Ageless let out a long, bitter sigh at last. Had another been standing next to him when he left his post, Krisk might have explained himself. He might have said that he was watching, hoping for a new beginning for his people. He might have shared his disappointment that he had seen it all before – the rise to power, the ambition for the future, and the crippling fall from grace. He was there when the Lizardmen called themselves Dragonkin, who had fully believed in their own strength, and their responsibility to protect the world from chaos. He had seen that strength do great things. Too often, he had seen that same strength destroy them. Krisk would also have shared his hopes for the City of Dreams. Rhazin Scarhide might have believed that the dream of that city was his own, but it was a dream of all Lizardmen and all Gaellens, from the lowest Ogryn to the proudest Orc. The dream that they were equals. The dream that they were strong, and that they no longer had to live in fear. But Krisk would also claim that it was a dream corrupted by a lust for revenge, for power, and to conquer the world for their own. It was the kind of dream that forges an empire, but the kind of dream that kills it, too. Krisk would say that he would know, because he had seen it all before. He was the last Dragonkin who remembered who they had been, and believed in who they could become. But Krisk the Ageless said none of that, because he was alone. He would have another age to wait, perhaps, before he could stand upon such a hill again, and dare to dream.