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Town of Death

Excerpts from The Real Draaknei

When my companion finally stopped it was almost dusk. What stood before me was another of their kind, sitting on a tall hill overlooking a town maybe a mile away. This one was far less tolerant of my initial assumptions of the Draaknei than my companion had ever been and became hostile at being called a Draaknei and even more so when I insinuated that they enjoyed death as they were reported to be. I discovered from the two of them that everyone in the town in front of us were going to die soon but I was denied permission to go warn them. As I tried to figure out whether to try and warn them anyway and what else I could do but wait for them to die I noticed that the other one didn't really seem to want anything to do with me, as if my very presence was an insult to the event. The two mainly spent the initial hours into the night conversing with each other in a polite, yet casual manner. Both snubbed any offer of food or drink. I tried to stay up with them just in case but eventually I fell asleep while they were discussing the intricacies of some spell.

I was woken up by my companion the next morning and was told nothing more than that "it was time." I looked around for some sign of an invading army or monster or even a fire, but there was nothing. All I could see was the town covered in an ordinary looking morning fog and the Draaknei. Another three of them had shown up some time during the night and the lot of them were generating some sort of golden barrier around us. One of the newcomers, a male who as far as I could discern at best only just barely an adult alerted me that it was beginning. My eyes darted back to the village, hoping to see what it was that they were seeing. But I saw nothing; heard nothing. I looked to the others and after a moment understood. They weren't watching the town. My companion even seemed to spend the entire time staring at the ground. The reason they weren't watching the town was because there was nothing to watch. There never would be a scream or sign of people running because they weren't dying in any violent manner but rather in their sleep. Something in the fog was killing them.

In fact I am pretty sure that the only thing that was keeping us alive was the barrier and considering the manner in which the color seemed to flicker periodically told me that they were struggling to even accomplish this small feat. There was simply no way that they could have had enough power to save the whole town and against a killing fog even if they did go to warn the people down there, there was simply not enough time to convince a town of the danger they were in and evacuate an entire town far enough to avoid the fog in order to survive. These creatures seemed to know this seemingly innately and had decided it better the townsfolk died peacefully in the comforts of their beds rather than in the fear and chaos of trying to run from the inevitable. And when I looked on them I saw not joy, satisfaction or even contentment. They were neither sad nor angry. Their very countenance reminded me of a normal person walking through a cemetery to go pay his respects to a friend long since passed.

All five of them came here like moths drawn to a flame but not out of some sense of malice or craving to feel death as the stories of them have so often implied but rather to pay their respects to the soon to be dead; putting their own lives on the line to do so. This is apparently their way. They do not bury their dead but rather honor the dead while they are still alive. To them it is enough to simply be there when they died. I understood the reason why my companion was so insistent that we be here for this event. With an entire town dying there would be far too many dead to bury. Far more likely the entire town would just be burned down just in case. These creatures, with whatever connection to death they may have have taken it upon themselves to do the only thing they know to honor the dead when no one else would; by simply being there for them. On reflection it is perhaps done as a sort of service, hoping that fate would be kind enough to have someone there to honor them when they die.

When it was all over the one that was there the longest bade his farewells to the departed and the five of them lied down to go take a nap, having apparently stood vigil the entire night before. Granted I'm sure they probably would have left if they could but with the killing fog still surrounding us there was nothing else to do but wait until it passed. Myself knowing there was a fog that would kill me in my sleep was too terrified to sleep in such a location. Obviously whatever they were doing to generate the barrier did not require them awake and I spent the time watching them sleep reflecting on everything that had happened. Their connection to death is a strange one, but one they seem to have embraced. But to say that this has made them desensitized to death would be a lie. As I watched them I realized that they feared their own deaths just as much as any of us. More so even, since where death to us is something that may happen sometime decades, maybe even centuries in the future, likely for all five of them they almost certainly have only a few more months to live.

This gave me new insight to their claims of hunting their own death. It is not just about trying to stop it but trying to come to some understanding of it and for that understanding they came to this place to watch the dead. It gave me newfound respect for them that instead of running away from what scared them so they ran towards it and tried to come to terms with it in case things did not go their way. As I watched them I noticed some differences between them. In general they all looked similar but between them seemed rather marked differences, particularly in fur color and thickness. Their weapons were completely different. Even the two whose weapon seemed something that would act as if they had six or maybe eight inch long claws had very fundamental differences.

When they woke they simply left without a word spoken to the others. They simply stood and walked off; each time one did the barrier grew smaller and the color faded. My companion and I were the third to leave. We each took one last glance at the town before heading on our way. This experience reinvigorated me and instilled within me a new sense of hope; that if I both fought and embraced my fate as they did that maybe I could find my cure. And for that I am truly thankful. I learned months later that what happened was a full hard day's ride the previous day some mages were processing dragon's blood to be used as an alchemic ingredient and didn't do all of the preparations correctly. The winds happened to be just right to carry the toxic fumes all the way to the town by that morning. But that no longer seemed all that important.