Headlines || Archive Index || Letters || Funny Page || Horoscope || Quiz || About the Bugle || Search || Madhouse
Archive
KUBALA THE DRAGONSLAYER
Dateline: 25-
It has been reported that the Duchess of Ghorst, Kubala Wildfire, has slain the fabled ‘Dragon of Stormspire’, Thermobalanzus.
Duchess Kubala is known to be leading an expedition into the interior of the volcanic mountain Stormspire, at the request of the Crown. The Crown asked for volunteers to journey to and enter the volcano four years ago, after travellers through Poldoon Pass on their way to and from Kyr reported that black smoke could be seen rising from the mountain’s top.
Although at the time the Crown spoke of the danger being from a volcanic eruption, the volcano has long been associated in legend with a fearsome dragon. People living along the border would recite a local tale that when the mountain stirred, it would awaken a terrible dragon from its slumber and it would emerge to ravage the surrounding countryside. Although this is last said to have happened in the reign of King Eustace I and serious historians have dismissed it as a fanciful recollection of the aftermath of a volcanic eruption, it now appears that the legend must after all be true.
A statement, released by the Duchess’ steward in Ghorst, describes how the expedition
has joined forces with a similar expedition sent by the Kyrian authorities, and that
they have descended deep into the volcano’s heart, where molten lava runs like water.
It is here that they met not one, but two mighty fire-
“As the other members of the group who were nearby tried desperately to get away from the dragons, the Duchess was filled with wrath as she recalled the death of her friend and retainer Brightmane the Unicorn, who had perished earlier in the exploration beneath the fiery toasting forks of Furry Fire Devils,” the statement recounts.
“Disdaining to wear armour as befits one born among the people of the Glaciers, she
advanced to meet the dragons and gave battle. Single-
“Thus was she revenged, as Vanaheim honour demands, for the death of Brightmane, and the Vanaheim can rejoice to know that Bereny’s mightiest warrior is truly a daughter of the Glaciers.”
Duchess Kubala’s reputation as a warrior is already considerable as it was she who struck the blow that brought to an end the Reaper’s reign of terror. As the fiancee of King Mark III, she might under other circumstances have been Queen of Bereny today. She remains an adviser to King Dirk, and it was Dirk who, as Regent, appointed his wife’s former bodyguard as Duchess of Ghorst.
The statement is however silent on another report to have emerged about the Stormspire
expedition, which is that when they met the Kyrian expedition, they found that it
was accompanied by a ghostly apparition of Duke David Tredach. If it is truly the
spectre of the late King’s long-
There seems little danger that the Kingdom is going to run out of dragons for the
Duchess to slay any time soon, as there have been rumours that the Deepwater Dungeon
in the far south-
According to legend however, the greatest dragon in Bereny is not Thermobalanzus
but the even more fabled ‘Old Flame’, who resides not in Stormspire but in the depths
of the Spirit Mountains in a place called the Valley of the Lost. If the legend of
the Dragon of Stormspire is true, perhaps that of ‘Old Flame’ is true as well? However
since no-