Dota 2 - Diary

I woke with a start. The world was dark and sulfurous. Pools of lava warmed the ground and filled my belly with fire. The air smelled like the great volcanoes in the heart of my mountains, but this was not the vast ledge where I roosted with my family. It was not the ancient forest of pine and fir I hunted for food and for sport. This was an unfamiliar world filled with strange creatures.

A spike of black rock curved in a semi-circle around me forming a nest of sorts. Tucked to one side was a funny looking man standing behind a wood stall and offering all sorts of strange objects. He took what little coin I had for potions of green and blue, a funny looking donkey and a stack of twigs. The man, round and chubby and looking more like a tasty treat, assured me that I would find use for these cryptic objects. Before I could press him for more information four strangers appeared at my side.

Looking left and right I counted four others appearing suddenly in this rock-nest. A man in metal, a man smelling of ozone and summonings, a man riding a piece of bird-meat, and a thing wreathed in purple haze. I knew nothing of these beings, though the chubby merchant smiled and sold them more objects from his stall. They were creatures unlike anything that I had seen in my mountains.

From the Great Sky a disembodied voice sited a countdown to the commencement of our hunt. Was this the ancient god of my race?

Dispersing from the rock-nest, I was sent to accompany the glowing purple demon. I hovered close to the wide paths as we trailed armed greenmen. The stagnant air affected my ability to gain the great heights I would reach in my home range. We moved cautiously through a sickly forest. The trees had turned to grey twigs; twisted stumps that hemmed in the path. We passed obsidian black towers as we rounded a corner to suddenly face two heavily armed opponents.

The bearded man hung back shooting at me from a metal tube. His unfamiliar teeth had range. But his lady moved in closer. She appealed to my right half with her silver flakes and touch of frost.

They crossed a mighty river to enter our woods choked with forgotten decay. At their feet, more greenmen rushed into the deadwood; raising spears into the air and sending small fires flying into our own greenmen. Their mall fires were pitiful in comparison to the flames burning in my own belly.

Greenmen attacked greenmen. Their deaths revealed fetid flesh that I would be loath to dine upon. Instead I turned my gaze to the river. The raging waters divided the land itself into the living and the dead. Beyond the ribbon of blue was a healthy forest of green. I knew it was fresh with delicious prey. Only two individuals stood in my way of that prize. Two individuals I would freeze and burn to reach that golden paradise.

Suddenly I am surrounded. Hulking strangers burst into the space around. Swords are hefted overhead and swung in a great arc. A boulder tumbled out of the cloudless sky. An arrow skimmed my outstretched wing.

I had no escape. Figures blurred in my vision. I became confused. , boulders came tumbling from the sky and arrows skim my outstretched wings. I panicked belching fire and breathing ice on those that came close. It didn’t work. Pain erupted in my chest. I fall from the sky hitting the ground hard. I could not lift my heads, every inch of my leather hide burns with pain. It was the end. The end of my own hunt, oblivion took over.

There was sweet blackness, the great release. Then the sulfurous stench of the Earth’s heart fills me once more. I blink awake in a ring of black stone. A nest with a merchant manning a wooden stall.