The Drake in the Crater

The Ember Wastes are a hot, crackly place. The ground is black and glassy, the rivers are orange and slow, and in the middle of the old volcanoes there are great round craters, like bowls left out by giants. That is where the Caldera Drakes make their nests.

A caldera drake is not quite a dragon. Not yet. It's a young cousin of the dragons: long-necked and red-scaled, with wings too small to lift it far, but legs strong enough to leap across a crater in a single bound. It lays its eggs in the warm ash where the ground steams, because a drake egg needs to be kept as hot as fresh bread from the oven.

Cinda the Salamander, who keeps the trading posts in the ember towns, has watched the drakes for years.

"They're show-offs," she says fondly. "They spend all morning basking on the crater rim with their wings spread out, turning so the sun catches every scale. And they collect things. Shiny things. Obsidian, mostly, and embers that don't go out. My grandmother said a drake who lives for a thousand years grows into a real dragon, and flies off to the Dragonfire Isle. Nobody knows if it's true. Nobody's ever been patient enough to watch one for a thousand years."

When the Gloom reached the Ember Wastes, most of it boiled away in the heat. But some of it sank into the craters, where it was cooler, and settled on the drakes' nests. Now the drakes are cross and jumpy. They crouch on the crater rim, and when anyone comes near, they leap, high into the air, and come crashing down where you were standing.

"Watch the ground," Cinda says. "Just before a drake lands, you'll see a ring appear where it's aiming. Step out of the ring. And don't bother with fire magic: you might as well try to make the sun warmer. Ice is what they don't like. Ice, and patience."

A calmed drake shakes itself, blinks, and flies off in a slightly wobbly way back to its nest, leaving behind a warm ember core, a few scales, some obsidian and, very rarely, a glowing amulet from its collection.

"And then there's old Magmaw," Cinda says. "The Caldera King. The oldest drake in the Wastes, grown huge on volcano heat, out on the far side where the ground is hottest. When the volcanoes rumble for no reason, that's him, stretching. Maybe he's the one who will turn into a dragon. Nobody wants to be standing next to him when he does."