The Ballad of Lord Theran

by Daryan Mograine

“Come take a seat a-round the fire bur-ning low.
Re-cite a tale of he-roes van-quish-ing our foe.
Of bold ad-vent-ure; love requited; he-ro's win.
From the tales of cities lost in deeps of sweepin' sin.


I’ve heard of cham-pi-ons who trav-eled far and wide;
In great re-lief, they quelled the dark-ness for a tide.
When nights grow dim, and the ev-il seems so nigh.
When terror quakes your bones, and nothing's seems alright.


So do our he-ro-es, set forth up-on their tale,
A fight-er bold, and a maid-en quite so fair.
A dash-ing rogue; with blades far sharp-er than his wit.
A wiz-ened sage who spells could shred a mind to bits.


Into the wild-er-ness, the party ven-tured North,
four brave adv-en-tur-ers to bold-ly sal-ly forth
the beast its evil; met their blades and met their might
one brief ex-change; for they were in for quite a fight.


It was a mir-a-cle, they lasted that first blow
the crea-ture's fire burned the trees around them low.
When all at once, a holy light around them spun.
It was quite evi-dent that they were far from done.


A bliz-zard con-jured from the sor-cer-ies of yore.
It rained down cold upon the drag-on on the shore.
The beast, it lunged upon the shield that Ther-an held.
Its claws were bared; and all its teeth were sharp as well.


Then did the Half-mann's blades of light-ning start to flash.
Like clasps of thun-der, again-st the scales of har-dened glass.
A jab; a punch, a spin; a slice a-cross the leg
In-flict-ing such a wound, a norm-al mann would beg.


But from the drag-on only came an an-gry roar.
Its wings unfurled, slow-ly rising from the floor.
With quick re-actions and the swift-ness of her feet
The dex-te-rous lass un-leashed a flur-ry in the sleet.


Her qui-ver empt-ied in a mo-ment only more.
For ever ar-row loosed, it left a gape of gore.
The drag-on weak-ened, crashin' in a clus-tered heap.
Its tail swung vi-olent-ly to sweep them from their feet.


On-ly Lord Ther-an stood there, shield-ed from the blast.
His blade drawn high; his Targe was holding on stead-fast.
Like a vip-er coiled to spring, the drag-on bound-ed back.
In this mom-ent fate did deem for Ther-an to attack.


Oh stor-ies tell of how he struck the mor-tal blow
For his com-pan-ions, tis the story that they've told.
In a charge of won-der, did he make that fin-al doom.
Dri-ving his blade into the heart of Sos'Toor'Thu'um


So ends the le-gend of Lord Ther-an and his corps.
Of them, im-morta-lized in old, for-got-ten l-or-e."

---

Sung similarly to the song 'Paint It Black." The last two lines are a coda the begins with the same pattern,
but the tempo slows with the word lore stretched out in a cascading scale to end.

Sos'Toor'Thu'um was the dragon's name in Dovah-Zul meaning Voice of the Fire's Blood. He was recorded to have attacked the old seaport of Davros during the 2E330 AoR (VR). Subsequently this has been the last recorded dragon sighting in nearly a millennia.