Once upon a time there was a young boy, his name was Dez. Dez never knew his real parents, he lived on the streets surviving day by day. One day when Dez was 12 he heard news of a dragon living in the mountains, terrorising the people who live there. Hearing this he decided to train himself to be the best fighter he could be with the help of his best friend, Finley.
Two years of hard training they both decided it was time. They told each other they would not fail like others had before them had, because they were together and had each others backs.
They left the next morning for their journey, for it was a long one. They took their weapons and food rations and left their home. On the first day they encountered a small cottage, in it lived a girl and her father. Dez and Finley were offered a place to sleep and eat. in exchange they were to fix the roof, as it leaked in the winter months. The next day they left the father and girl to carry on their journey. After two days of walking they came across a village. The village was shrouded in darkness and barely inhabited, they found an inn and settled down for the night. The day after, they travelled through the village as fast as they could. The pair walked for what seemed like an eternity until they came upon a stream, on the other side of the stream was a beautiful woman with golden hair and fair skin. They approached the stream, being careful not to disturb the girl. Just as they were about to drink from the stream the girl spoke;
'Beware. This stream has a curse placed upon it, if any man drinks from these waters he will become that which scares him most.'
The boys too stunned to speak, captivated by her angelic voice carried on drinking but when Finley took a sip of the water he started to twist and change making Dez jump back from the water. Right before his eyes he saw Finley change from a human boy to a small tiny grey rat. As Dez went to pick him up before he could run off, the girl across the stream spoke once more;
'I warned you. There is only one way you can help him now, by finding a witch. There is one who will help you five towns away from here, but beware, it will come with a price.'
With that the girl disappeared. Dez picked up Finley the rat and made his way through the forest. He went through each town trying to find a witch who would help but found no one until the fifth town as the girl said. In the fifth town the witch they found was quite old. The witch agreed to turn Finley back but only if Dez promised to owe her 3 favours.. Dez agreed and the witch turned Finley back into a boy. The pair left the witches house as humans, owing the witch 3 favours.
By this point, a month after they left their home, they were nearing the mountains. It seemed to the boys that the mountains where whispering to each other quiet whispers. It seemed to calm them but slightly unsettle them like the calm before the storm. Before the mountain was a lake with no bridge, there was no way to go round and the boys wondered if that was why everyone else had failed. Determined not to fail they took off their shoes, rolled up their trousers and waded through the water. When they had taken 3 steps in they noticed a man under the water swimming towards them. When the man had reached them he rose above the surface and spoke to them, he said;
'The witch told me id find you here, she told me that you owed her 3 favours and that the 1st favour would be to help me by returning my tail to me.'
At this the boys were perplexed as they did not know man could have a tail but nevertheless they asked the man how they could help. The man told them that in the mountains there was a dragon who stole his pendant from around his neck and that in exchange for agreeing to get it back for him he would help them across. The boys agreed to the merman's terms and so they were taken across the lake safely by the man. When they had crossed the man told them that they would find the dragon in the first cave they found and with that they said goodbye and went on their way. True to the mans word the came upon a cave that was emanating heat and certainly there was a dragon inside. They aprahensively approached the entrance of the cave only to find the entrance was blocked by some invisible magic.
After hours of trying to break through the barrier they decided to sit down and have some food. As they lent against the side of the mountain something strange started to happen; the boys fell right through the solid rock.
Cautiously the boys tested out the rock then Dez decided to just walk through it, closely followed by Finley. The cave itself was pretty nondescript, it had a fire burning in the middle of the large room and coal drawings on the wall the only thing truly interesting was the fact that instead of a dragon lying by the fire there was a young boy a little older then Dez and Finley themselves.
