Women and men, children and elders. All those captured sat on their knees around the fire. Behind them, the Hands were throwing every burnable substance onto the pyre. Not just wood but also tools and furs. It was all burning. The heat was burning the prisoners’ backs. Most of them were a sobbing mess. Some tried to be defiant, even though they were defeated. They refused to give in to the pain of the heat behind them. The leader stepped before them, back and forth. Observing them. Until one of the Hands gave him a nod. Almost everything was in the huge, blazing bonfire now. He walked up to one of the defiant ones. A woman, almost 19. [b]“What is your name.”[/b] She spat before his feet. Which amused the leader to no end. He planted the brazier-staff into the ground and pulled her up by her throat. Yet she remained defiant in her eyes. [b]“Do you hate me?”[/b] She spat again, this time in his face. He took the full spat without flinching. [b]“Good.”[/b] He answered. [b]“Now do you hate anyone here?”[/b] He asked with a soft, snake-like voice. She didn’t break eye contact. But someone down the line of kneeling people did stir. He dropped the girl and moved the guy a bit further down. [b]“So… what did you do?”[/b] the leader asked as he looked down upon the now whimpering guy. A man of barely 25. Who couldn’t get a word through his fear. [b]“It’s okay. I don’t need to know. She knows.”[/b] The leader turned to the girl again. [b]“Do you want to kill him?”[/b] This time she looked up surprised for a second. The leader grinned. [b]“I’ll let you.”[/b] He said a she dropped the village elder’s knife before her feet. The girl looked fearful at the burned corpse of her elder, but then back at the blade. It was quiet, save from the crackling of fire behind her. The leader knew what was going on in her head. The doubt, the fear, then the power, the desire. He had seen it twenty times over. It was now or never. Slowly the girl picked up the knife and rose. With weak legs, she stepped towards the man who could only whimper more and more. She started to cry as well. All emotions were overflowing in both of them. Until she stood right before him. The man, the victim, begged her: [b]“Please! Please! I will never do it again! It will never-“[/b] his pleads were cut short by the quick of the blade into his chest. The girl, in a swift move had come down on knee down before him and stabbed him. His head, carrying his wide eyes of disbelief, fell on her shoulder as blood seeped through his mouth. But the girl wasn’t done. Still holding up his body she stabbed and stabbed while she screamed like only a damaged woman could scream. Again and again she thrusted the knife in his flesh. Covered in blood she rose up again and dropped the knife. A lifeless body fell before her as she took a step back. The captured villagers were all frozen in shock. A shock only broken by the mad laughter of the Leader. [b]“Such fury! Such pain! Wonderful, wonderful!”[/b] With those words, the Hands took the people, bound their hands and feet and threw them into the fire one by one. As soon as the villagers knew what was happening they squirmed and screamed into the night. It wasn’t enough. The hands slapped and hit them into physical submission. But one was spared. The girl. She looked back at the Leader, confused and afraid. [b]“It’s your corpse. Offer it up.”[/b] The girl, ever fearful of what she had done, did what she was told. She picked up the corpse with all the strength in her limbs, dragged it towards the screaming pyre and rolled the man into it. In a cauterized way, she felt better.

Then the Leader chanted. [b]“Oh Ragnagedon! Lord of Fire! I call for you once more! Accept these sacrifices I have made in your name!”[/b] he raised his brazier-staff high but the pyre’s flame reached higher. He had prayed and sacrificed many people now. The blood of the innocent had flown freely. And he was able to turn many people to his own cause. Yet his god hadn’t answered him yet. But the Leader was not dissuaded. No-one had seen the Fire God in years.
[hr]
Far south the Destroyer was asleep in his lair. The pool of lava gently bubbled around him. The very land relatively calm and tranquil. There were no clouds and the sun shone down on the rocky ground. There was only a low rumble every now and then. The Destroyer was dreaming of the Golden Gate, a dream that vexed him for decades now. But because of it, the world knew peace. Not for long anymore. A strange sense stirred the great god. His dream vision blurred. The Golden Gate vanished. Instead, it was replaced by another scene. It was night but a large flame burned away the darkness. He saw fire, he saw blood. People threw others in the pyre. Ragnagedon had seen this now several times. A human with a brazier-staff, adorned in bone and torches, sacrificing other humans to him.

The time was right. The land reacted. Ragnagedon opened his eyes and the rumbling increased in Verzak. He raised himself out of the pool as great spires outside began to spat out clouds of ash. Deep beneath the earth, the magma cores shook. Their delicate, roiling movement broke into an ascend. As the God of Fire crawled out of the pool of lava, he lifted his wings to reveal black stone eggs. Soon after the god reached solid ground the stone eggs began to crack. The fissures glowed a gentle red and pulsing energy. The cracking continued as Ragnagedon peered from out his lair into the world. Somewhere far away a human was calling him. Behind him, the eggs cracked open revealing tiny lizards. These malformed, scaled creatures were barely realizing what was happening before they fell into the lava beneath them. Inside the pool they burned and screamed. The heat and fire fed the essence Ragnagedon had placed within them. They screamed though, as the power broke and mend them many times over. Transforming their pathetic early forms into something greater.

When the first Verzakian Dragon crawled out of the lava it let out a deafening scream. It demanded but a moment of the god’s attention. But it was enough. The first dragon, driven by a need it did not understand, charged the god. The fight turned towards the sky when the dragon tried to flee, then realized it could not run from the destroyer. It turned around and fought the god in the blackened skies of Verzak. Wings and bodies clashed. On the ground the fierce winds billowed the flames rising from broken chasms. High above the clouds were black with ash, blocking the sun. Lava exploded from the great mountain, Ragnagedon’s home, below. The whole realm was reduced to a hellscape. The only light came from the roiling magma and eternal flames burning everywhere. But the first Verzakian Dragon stood no chance against a god. Soon it fell from the skies against the mountainside. Broken and defeated. The other dragons crawled out of the lair. Ever so submissive to their creator. One gaze towards them, as he stood over the broken corpse of their eldest sibling, was enough to make they scurry for the other mountains. But Ragnagedon was satisfied. Their essence, his essence, would drive them like slaves towards his goal.

[hider=Summary]The human Leader of the fire cult ordered the prisoners rounded up. He gave one the chance to enact revenge and murder someone she hated. Then everyone else was thrown into a great pyre as a sacrifice to Ragnagedon. This awoke the fire god. Who had created special dragons that are now let loose upon the world.
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