You, Trent Godfrey, wait silently in the woods north of the location of attack in the Sulu mountain range. The area around you densely forested with various pines and you remain hidden with the other 14 men in your black attire. Knowing what must be done you prepare your defensive spells for the coming attack. 'O.K., mainly fire users and must protect from physical attack... water, earth and iron should work for this, good thing they taught me these spells or I'd be useless... now they where... Stagnum Tholus, Terrestris Maceria, and Strictura Callum... yes, those should keep everyone alive. Since you are a recruit wizard from the small trading town of Parcel, they have you forced in the back of the group to cast protection spells on the attacking militia, the spells which were forced into your mind quite harshly. The other soldiers’ fantastic tales of slaughtering dragons did not help to sway your mood either.
Slowly you approach the target, the entire group moving quickly, yet without noise. They all were apparently well trained with no aid from a minor Illusion spell as you were. 'Any mage in his right mind should know this, bastard captain... not like I ever trained to be a wizard.’
'Come on, over here' Captain James Tumald signaled as he motioned over toward an entrance. You did not like this man; in fact, you would kill him if it would not condemn yourself for treason. This "Captain" is the one who forced you and your best friend, Felix Brombard, away to join this unholy war. You were the only two in your town to hold any reasonable potential for magical ability. Since the War began, it has become an increasingly difficult skill to find in the populace, as they were mostly involved with the war. You had nothing against dragons. They never hurt you, your family, or anyone you knew for that matter. They were honorable enough to keep their massacres of humans away from citizens and toward attacking soldiers.
However, it is not to say the dragons did not have losses of their own. The better wizards in the army's made sure of that.
As you creep slowly toward a cave, you could not help but begin to feel uneasy about the attack. Not only had you sneaked far behind enemy lines to get to this location, but also there were not any dragons on watch, on the ground or in the air. Not a single flying beast. The feeling only increases as the Captain gave more hand signals and the entire group slowly surrounded the entrance, all with weapons at the ready.
As you approached, you heard a large crack on the ground. At first you quickly jerked away, frightened the captain would here, but he only kept moving 'duh... the spell, need to stop spooking myself'. Relieved you looked down to find what it was that cracked. It was a hard almost rock like substance with a beautiful orange glow that made it shine in contrast to the moonlight. It looked as if it had been recently broken as pieces were scattered around a 6-foot diameter.
An all too chilling realization crept into your mind. 'This is an eggshell... A DRAGON eggshell!’ You knew instantly from various books you read about their livelihood. However, if this was here than this is no military base... 'This was a nest!’ You stopped in your tracks breathless.
Even though this was war, you could not sink so low as to help in the slaughter that was about to happen this day, but if you defied the orders of your leader you would be tried for treason and expelled from the army into poverty along with your family and maybe even exiled. Running could be possible to, but the consequences were even more severe if you were caught doing that. A decision had to be made, and quick.
(A.N. Stagnum Tholus means standing water dome, Terrestris Maceria means earthen wall and Strictura Callum means Mass of Iron Skin literally translated from Latin)