The Jikkan Gogyo - 1. The fire dragons

Sourin, the demon lord, was at his 300 year of rule. The time had come for him to travel his lands; he cared grately about his people and sought to himself that they faired well.
Still he was the most powerful demon, in the last 300 years not one demon had come close to match his strength, and therefor he would not need an escort on his travel.
Sourin was well known all over his kingdom, as a stern but honest ruler. But most of all he was known for his demonic beauty . Some even claimed he was more beautiful than any woman know to the world.
The day when he decided it was time to leave his palace, was when he had noticed a change in the dragons living within the palace. He had realized that the race had become weakened through the breeding with humans. Their majestic appearance was dwindling and the magic within them diminished. He did not blame the dragons for this failure; after all, times were different now than right after the war and breeding between the races was not forbidden.
However, he feared that the magic was to completely vanish, and as it was his duty to look after the inhabitants of the world, he took it upon himself to search all over the land for a way to save his people.
He knew he would have to find the original dragons, in order to restore the balance and bring magic back into it’s natural flow. And so, he set out his quest to search.
Sourin first traveled the land inside the border of his kingdom. The general fair of his working people would always have to come first. Four months he spend, writing down possible changes needing to be made; all from the granting of new breeding horses, to new rules regarding the rising problems caused by thieves.
From here he went to travel the outlands; the untouched woodland and steppes inhabited by his territorial brethren. He first visited the known tribe of the wind dragons in the east, in hope they would have information that could guide him towards the original dragons. The wind chief was sad to tell him that the knowledge of their shifting brethren disappeared along with the dragons them selves.
Sourin next visited the water dragons in the North. But they too gave him the same answer; they had not seen or heard from the original ones since the Great War.
But during his visit with the earth tribe in the West he was set led onto a path, which he hoped, would lead him in the right direction.
The wife of the earth chief, mentioned that he might have better luck searching for the fire tribe, in the dead lands, towards the south. Since the whole tribe had vanished during the Great War, maybe the originals would still live amongst the rest of the tribe.
And so he traveled to the Deadlands.
The dense woods in the south stretched towards the inland and the mountains, which stretched far into the land. The west lands, of Sourin’s empire, was sparse forest and earthy terrain. Towards the north was grassland before the sand and sea, and in the east were the open steppes, with steeps cliffs bordering the ocean.
During his 7’th month he saw an incident. He had just entered the southern territory of the land, a part of his kingdom he had never paid much attention to before, because he had no people in this realm. Through time the lands had also become more or less uninhabitable due to the ever growing Forrest.
A large group of poorly dressed men, had surrounded a young man, armed with long spears. Slowly they cornered him against a cliff side, trapping him there.
“Come on handsome, show us what ya got. We don’t wanna hurt ya, we just wanna take a look at the goodies” one of the men said, a leer on his face.
Sourin looked from afar, uncertain of the circumstances. Were they going to abuse the poor man? If so, why were they at such a large number and armed with spears?
Just as he was about to interfere, and save the young man, all of his questions were answered. One of the men jabbed forth his spear but the young man jumped to the side, out of reach, and suddenly – an enormous cloud of black smoke and burning sparks consumed the young man and out raised a huge black dragon with eyes so green that you almost could not tear your gaze away.
The dragon slowly -- warning, turned its head from one side to the other, gazing the men surrounding it. They had all fallen dead silent and were frozen on the spot. As Sourin watched the scene play out in front of him he noticed the scales of the dragon; even though they were black they had this deep red glow in the sparse light of the forest, like the burning ember of a dying piece of coal.
The dragon opened its mouth and roared, one of the men tear loose from the hypnosis of the dragons gaze and screamed “RUN”. All the other men tear loose as well and turned to run, as fast as they could, not even sensing Sourin on his horse as they ran right past him.