ERETHEOS
It was a hard life, but the ancestors of current citizens within Eretheos had chosen such a life when they founded the city. In fact, they had counted on it. The isolation allowed them to worship their patron god, a risen human hero, now called Ereos, gifted such a name when he ascended to godhood on the back of winged lions. The Eretheonites had built many statues to their god, as they believed him to be responsible for all of their good fortune. For, though they were isolated from civilised lands, the trade with barbarians had become somewhat lucrative. Perhaps Eretheos was not the best city to make such trade relations, as they were a city of flight from oppression rather than lucre and trade, but they made do. Some Sidonian merchants did still live within the walls of Eretheos, and they were not treated badly. But make no mistake - Eretheos does not go out of its way to trade elsewhere.
It was on one particular night that a trading vessel from the south approached Eretheos. This was most unusual - traders, without fail, arrived during the day, not at night. The Eretheonite guards on duty became most confused, as anyone would. But they followed protocol. They blew the horn that sounded an arrival from the south. This sent word to the southern portmaster to allow the ship entry, and woke up some sleeping residents within the city.
One such resident was the Chief Merchant of Eretheos. In his house by the docks, he should have been asleep. He initially thought it was youthful guardsmen playing a joke, but as the lamp-lights around the city gradually lit, the Merchant could indeed see that a ship was coming through the mouth of the port. Immediately, he dressed in a robe, not very smart, but a robe nonetheless. He descended the path towards the port as a small crowd of people, elite spearman guards included, gathered around the ship.
It was a small ship, not usually the kind to reach Eretheos, perhaps only even worthy to be called a boat. And notably, save for a few sparse supplies, was not full of the usual level of trading goods found in Eretheonite ports. Most notably, there were no crew to be seen. A ship even of this size should have at least three crewmen, but none could be seen. Immediately, the guardsmen became concerned. The Chief Merchant sent them aboard, and over a small gangplank, they snuck onto the ship, attempting to make as little noise as possible. The ship did have one small walled section, made of wood like the rest of the ship, but behind two wooden doors, perhaps for the crew to sleep within. They approached, both putting one hand on each door. They opened, moving back and putting their shields in front of them.
As the moonlight flooded in, they could see the hunched figure of a man. Still alive, by the looks of him. The darkness was still quite hard to see into, but the sound was clear to hear. A sound of laughter? No, sobbing. A gentle, soft sob, aligning perfectly with the man's rocking and shoulder-shaking. The guards looked at each other, before moving inwards, becoming somewhat more accustomed to the dark, and lowering their shields slightly.
The next thing that hit them was the smell. A metallic tang, gently lying over the subtle scent of beef and pork. The most pungent of all was the hair. Ereos, that hair stank. Sulfuric, like some of the mountains in the area. It was a scent that invaded the nostrils, blotted out all smells before it, whether pleasant or unpleasant. A guard put down his shield to block his nose. The moonlight hit the source of the smell.
She was small. A child, by the looks of it. Skin blackened, old furs clinging to parts of her like a torn banner on a stick. The face was not soon forgotten. She was no longer recognisably human. She, or perhaps it, had been dead for a short while, likely dying over the course of days. A slow, agonizingly painful death, feeling the life slipping away as the burnt skin became infected. By now they could hear the man's voice even clearer. Hoarse, breathy. He had been sobbing for some time. Whether or not he could notice the guards was not certain.
The guard who had kept his shield up prodded the man with the blunt end of his spear. The man's head lifted, hands moving down from his face. He turned around slowly. His skin was dark, darker than that of most traders who came to Eretheos. He looked up at the guards, blood on his cheeks emerging from small fingernail marks, sweat glistening off the moonlight as his head turned. He whispered something softly. Something in a language neither guard could speak. They whistled to the Chief Merchant, who came aboard hurriedly. He stood in the doorway, taking in the same stimuli that the guards had, albeit in quicker succession. He covered his nose, before noticing the body on the floor. He knelt down, touching the body in a traditional Eretheonite death ritual.
The man became enraged. He charged at the Merchant, biting and scratching as he did so. The two guards, after a scuffle, restrained him before he could harm the Merchant too much. The Merchant rose, and the trancelike state that the man had seemed to be in all but disappeared. He immediately began shouting the word that he had before whispered, shouting to all on the quay and in the city. Those who had not been awake before soon became awake. Those who knew the language that the man spoke, albeit in a slightly different dialect, had shocked looks on their faces as they explained to their Telenian counterparts who knew nothing of the language. And as the merchant began to hear the hurried shouts the man made, he looked back at the body, a sense not just of dread, but of a dreadful understanding dawning in his mind. All the way up to the Tyrant's palace, the dawning spread that what once was thought to be mythical was no longer thought to be such. The sound of thousands of birds being released from the palace, carrying with them a simple message, confirmed to the citizens by simple association what they already ultimately feared.
Dragons are real, and they've come back.